Pactio Quindecim!
by Meinos Kaen
Summary: Some things that happen can lead to different evolutions in a person's history, if they happen in different circumstances or with different people, or at a different age. This is the case of Naruto. Tricked by an ermine. Negima XOver, Rewrite of Pactio!
1. First hour

_Prologue_

"Wow… I had no idea there were other hidden places like my village…" It sure was a nice and new place, for Negi. After all, it was like the complete opposite of his birthplace. He had always lived in an English town where lots of people used magic. That town instead had a clear oriental style to it mixed with modern technology here and there. It was like a transition from England to his assignment in Japan: to be a teacher in the Mahora Academy, but on the way he had to stop in that village because he needed to recharge his magic power for the other half of the trip, or better, the other jump.

To make the travel easier, they had given Negi a special artefact that, powered by his magic power, would let him cover the distance in a few minutes. Of course, Negi still hadn't enough magic power for that. He had to stop three times to rest. Fortunately, that was the last stop and once he recharged his magical power again, he would be able to reach Japan, finally. Just a few hours left…

But we've seen many times that a couple hours can make the difference. Especially if a certain other person was following Negi's movements, planning to meet with him when it was safe. After all, a talking ermine is pretty strange even in the elemental countries, outside of a ninja village.

- BreakLine -

"Hmmm… Now, what to do…" A bored Naruto is a troublesome Naruto as Shikamaru would put it. It was always the same whenever he and his teacher they stopped in a new town for the night. Since for at least another year it would be safe for him to wander around at least in the same neighbourhood as the self-declared super-pervert, it also meant that he could be left alone while Jiraiya entertained the ladies of some places where he wasn't allowed yet… Well, in theory. Some of the women seemed very eager to have him come inside with his teacher. One pouted when he refused.

During his training trip with the Sannin he had honed, along with his ninja ones, his pranking skills, and he had found out that there were many other targets to be exploited other than adults. Well, he was nearly an adult too, so, with age came knowledge of further matters that he could use as pranks. One thing that he had learned to love was the naivety of children. Especially around older women, who seemed to never get tired of going 'kawaaaaaiiiiiii' on them. They get all agitated and flustered… Yep, definitely in the mood for pranking a 'youngster'. He began to look around, looking for a victim… And he found it.

There he was, a cute little boy, could not be older than ten years old. Glasses, a big trenchcoat, a backpack. He was looking around taking every new sight in, awed by the place. Perfect. A foreigner traveller. He snickered evilly and then walked inside an alley, doing a single handseal. "Henge!"

- BreakLine -

Chamo was an ermine. A descendant of the supreme Caith Sith with no bonds, free like the air, except for the debt of gratitude he held towards one child. The child was named Negi Springfield. He had heard of his important mission, and he couldn't help but be worried. After all, a nine years old going to a school in Japan to be a teacher… That was going to be a pretty difficult task even for his aniki. That's why he had decided to follow him, and he finally had managed to catch up to him, even if he had been forced to use a lot of his ermine dollars to buy spells to tail him. In the end, he was about to wait for him to walk somewhere where a talking ermine could come out and greet a human… So, a dark alley was ideal, but, he clearly hadn't expected Negi to be approached by a hot blonde girl.

_Maybe…_ There was time for a pactio, before meeting aniki. He could use some more ermine dollars. And he just knew the method. He had seen that movie, after all… 101 Dalmatians or something…

- BreakLine -

"Wow! What strange patterns!" Negi was in a state of trance observing the mask he was currently holding in his hands, property of a stall from which he had picked it up. "It looks like… A dog? How interesting…" He thought about buying it… Before realizing that in that village there was a different currency. He sighed and put it back where he had taken it from.

"Hey, kid. What are you looking at?" Negi turned around… And immediately began to panic. He found himself face to face with a very beautiful woman, that was wearing some revealing clothes. Her breasts were almost coming out of the he didn't know how many sizes too little tank top she was wearing.

"Eh… Ah… bu… But…" He tried to form a coherent sentence, but any hope of doing that disappeared when the woman put a hand over his head and ruffled his hair. He started to panic even more, waving his arms up and downs to his side.

"My, my. Aren't you the cutest little thing? Did oneechan scare you? Hn?" Inside Naruto was snickering loudly. This was a bit of vengeance for how often this happened to him too… Well, he didn't panic, but still, it seemed that once he got on that training trip with Jiraiya, the older ladies just couldn't seem to leave him alone.

"Ah, no! It's just that… I… I mean, my sister always said to…" Negi seemed to have got some semblance of control over his tongue, but not enough to make sense, it seemed. But unknown to the two of them… Disaster decided to strike, in ermine form.

_Chance._ The white animal had tied one end of a long pink ribbon around a light-pole, and had the other end safely between his teeth. He focused all his energies and then sprinted forward. In the arc of two seconds he had run four full circles around the two's legs and had then started to pull.

"Eh?!" Negi was the first to lose balance.

"What the hell?!" Followed quickly by the transformed Naruto. It was impressive how the damn animal had calculated the trajectory and everything else so that the much taller woman would fall exactly at the right time to land her lips on Negi's ones. Of course, the two froze. This gave the ermine the chance to turn around and use the 'Pactio' spell.

"Alright! Now… …" The shock had had the double effect to froze both of the boys and release Naruto's transformation, exposing the boy for what he was. Not a busty, beautiful woman, but a tall, manly teen. Kamo had one reaction. The very opposite of a nosebleed. He spiral vomited high in the air and landed unconscious on the ground while the magic circle appeared under the two victims and flashed with light.

The two boys stayed like that for like… Ten seconds, before breaking up, still staring at each other's eyes like they had just seen their undead parents come back to life to eat their brains, while the circle and the light disappeared and something appeared with a smaller flash of light in one of Negi's pockets.

The two kept on staring at each other before reality kicked in. Then, they let out two enormous, synchronized screams that frightened everyone in a ten kilometres radius, and thankfully made the ones immediately nearby forget what they had witnessed. In the meanwhile, a few countries away, Sasuke Uchiha shivered.

"What… This… This feeling…" _It's like… A million of Yaoi fangirls suddenly awakened from their slumber… But why do I feel safer? … Ah. It involves a shota. That's why._

**Pactio! Quindecim  
First hour: The kiss of doom**

Now, what's the first thing you would do if by accident you would kiss a preteenish year old kid? Naruto, still screaming along with the kid, ran to the inn where he was staying with his teacher, making a very awkward sight for the street-walkers and the inn's caretakers as he zoomed up the stairs and kicked a cat out of his way to his room. He took out his keys, opened the door, got inside, slammed the door behind him and then made a touchdown dive for the bathroom.

Not giving the boy he had grabbed even a second to regain his bearings, he took out two toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste. He poured half of it in his mouth and half of it in the child's mouth, and then stuck his spare toothbrush in as well. "WASH! WASH LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!" And not much surprisingly, the child complied, still too frightened and weirded out by everything that had happened in so little time.

- BreakLine -

"Gah…" A good half hour of rubbing had reduced Naruto's and the kid's oral cavity to a scraped, bloody mess and Naruto was pretty sure that he would taste fresh mint toothpaste for days. He took a few breaths while the kid just kept on staring at him… Before he began to panic. "Aaaaaaah! I hope no one saw that! I already have few chances with Sakura-chan as it is. NOW THEY WILL THINK I GO FOR JAILBAIT! MALE JAILBAIT! NOOOOO! Ah, wait. No one knows me here… BUT STILL, AAARGH!"

If Munch would have ever had the need for a model when drawing 'The scream', Naruto in that situation would have made the perfect subject. It was all there. Desperation, anger, the feeling of doom. All in one person. Negi remembered that his sister had told him that he was supposed to help people in distress. Comfort them a little. "Ehm… I'm sure no one saw it… And, it's not like it's the end of the world…"

"IT WOULD BE THE END OF MY SOCIAL LIFE, THOUGH, IF WORD GOT OUT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! I REALLY HOPE NO ONE SAW US AND I HOPE GOSSIPS DOESN'T TRAVEL THROUGH THE FIRE COUNTRY! AND WHERE THE HELL DID THAT STRANGE CAT AND THE RIBBON COME FROM, ANYWAY?!" Naruto shifted his mood like a woman subject to her monthly things from sad to angry to desperate all in the arc of a few seconds, shaking his head from side to side with his hands as if to purposely inflict pain upon himself. Then he suddenly stopped and blinked when he realized something. He had no idea who he had just had the 'incident' with. He only knew that he was a kid with brown-reddish hair carrying around a staff wearing a long trenchcoat. "And by the way… Who the hell are you?"

"Ehm…" Negi rubbed the back of his head. He didn't expect that question, at least not so soon. He was half expecting the blonde older boy to panic a little more.

"I mean, you're not using any technique, but that staff, that cloak… And the shoes and pants too. You clearly aren't from Konoha… Nor any place in the fire country, I think." Naruto scratched his head in thought, then he just let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, whatever. If you disappear as soon as possible I can deny everything, in case someone asks…"

"Ehm… Probably… Uh?" Suddenly, Negi noticed something sticking out of his pocket. He picked it out. It was a card. A really strange card, which most evident detail was the image of the older boy standing in front of him.

He was standing in a somehow flashy pose, standing while facing front, his legs slightly apart, the width of his shoulders. His arms crossed in front of his chest. He wasn't wearing the same outfit that he had at the moment. He could make out a white shirt open on his chest revealing some kind of necklace, a pair of black trousers with a cloth belt, white sneakers, and a long black coat with rolled up sleeves. Around his head, instead of a forehead protector, he saw some kind of long piece of cloth tied in a headband around his head, the ends falling long behind his head in a wavy pattern, and there was an orange pattern in the middle of his forehead.

Then, he began to observe the rest of the card. Behind the image of the boy, there was the clear shape of a magic circle. In the right upper corner, there was the word 'Croceus' above the word 'Tonus' and over a light circle of said colour. In the upper left corner of the card was a 'I', the Latin way of writing the number 1. Above the picture, in the middle, were the words 'Charta Minister'.

In the lower half of the card… The most evident thing was what he guessed was the name of the boy. It was written 'Uzumaci Naruto', the surname above the name. Under it, written in smaller characters, there was a strange writing… 'Heros Inrequietus'. In the lower left corner of the card was the world 'Astralitas' and lower, almost on the edge of the card, the world 'Sol', and between them, the symbol of said planet, a large circle with a single dot in the middle. And in the lower right corner of the card, again the number 'I'.

Finally, between the last two things, there were four more words, one above the other. The first word, from up to down, was the word 'Virtus'. Under it, in bigger characters, the word 'Pertinacia'. Under it, in the same characters as 'Virtus', the word 'Directio'. Under it, in the same characters as 'Pertinacia', the word 'Oriens'.

_Now that I think about it… I was caught by surprise at the moment, but rethinking about it… I clearly felt magic power being summoned._ Right after these thoughts went through Negi's head… He tensed and swallowed.

"Hmm? What is that?" Naruto had leaned in to observe what Negi was holding and observing so intensly. Not able to observe it completely, he walked behind the younger boy, and he managed to take in the card in all his might from over the small boy's shoulders. "Woooooow! Damn, I look cool in this thing… But what is it?"

"Ehm… I don't really know… And that's what troubles me…" Negi said, starting to worry a little. Naruto blinked, and the small boy almost wanted to cry… Scratch almost. He had already got in trouble. He didn't know what had happened, before, but he knew that a spell had been cast, and the card had something to do with it. The only thing that gave him some tips were the words 'Charta Minister'. They meant 'Contract' and 'Follower/Attendant'. Whatever happened had probably someway bounded the older boy to Negi. He had been discovered even before starting his assignment. "… Ehm… Uzumaki Naruto-san… That's your name, right?"

"Eh? Wow. How do you know? Are you a magician or what?" Asked Naruto, grinning like only he knew how to, mocking the boy. Negi just turned around completely to him and said…

"Yes, I am."

Naruto stopped grinning, and then blinked. Once more. Two more times. "Say what?"

"My name is Negi Springfield. I'm a mage in training. I was heading to a foreign country called Japan to begin my first assignment, but I had to stop here to refresh my energy reserves for the trip." He then put the card he was holding on the ground, between the two of them. "Earlier, I don't know why, a spell has been cast that somewhat tied yourself to me, but I don't know what it is or what it does do."

"…" Naruto's brain processed what the child, Negi, had said to him, and he automatically set him to answer with a smart-ass remark and a dead serious face. "A mage? I mean, huh? Magic doesn't exist… Does it?"

While somewhere far away a certain missing nin sneezed, Negi looked at the ground, and sniffled a bit. Then, he took out his training wand and said, pointing it towards a flower in a pot near Naruto's bed. "Ardescat." The poor thing immediately caught fire.

"HEY!" Naruto got a bit startled by the sudden combustion, and after a good ten seconds on looking alternatively at Negi and the burning flower, he settled to stare at Negi wide eyed. "What the… I mean, you're really not a ninja?" Naruto rubbed his chin in thought, squinting his eyes. "I mean, I didn't see you making anything with your hands… Also, what the hell does Ardescat mean? It doesn't sound like a jutsu name…"

"It's latin…" While Naruto squinted his eyes further, trying to remember if he had ever head of 'Latin' before, Negi was glad that it took so little to persuade him… But suddenly little tears started to form in the young child's eyes. "I'm sorry! I don't… I don't know what happened, and what this card is! The only thing I know is that you're tied to me some way, now!"

Naruto was starting to get really worried. Tears were never a good sign. But adding to that the notions about mages, and an unknown magic and 'tie'… "Ehm… So, there's something like… A curse on me, now?"

"I… I don't know… Maybe…" Negi sniffled a bit, finally acting a bit like his actual age. Naruto was sweating a lot and he swallowed loudly, since he didn't like what he was hearing at all. "… I think… I think it would be better if you came with me…"

"E-Eh?!" Naruto began to freak out with those few words. Follow him?! Follow him where?! "W-What… Why should I do that?!"

"I… I don't know what could happen to you if we got too far away from each other. Right now you're well, but there are some spells who are triggered by distance…" Now Negi was openly crying. "P-Please! I… If you come with me, I'll manage to discover something about what happened! If something happened to you… Not only you would get hurt or worse, but I would probably get turned into an ermine!"

"…" Now, Naruto's mind was elaborating various pieces of information, all of them at the same time. The child was a mage. The child had, by mistake, cast a spell on him. And he had said that something bad could happen to Naruto and that he would get turned into an ermine? Whatever, that was not the point. What mattered was that he was asking him to follow somewhere he didn't know for kami knew how long…

But, there was the matter that his life could be at risk. No life, no ninja, and not Hokage… But, the stab at his heart were Negi's tears. So, in the end, Naruto asked himself, 'What would the Yondaime do?', already knowing the answer. He sighed deeply. _Oh, well. Sasuke still has one year of time, after all._ "… When were you planning on departing?"

"Eh? Then, you…" Negi tried to say, feeling a bit relieved.

"What do you think? I don't think I'd like being dead. And I don't know about being an ermine, but it doesn't sound so great…" Naruto replied sarcastically, a single drop of sweat on the front of his forehead, instead of the back.

"Ehm… Right… Well, I was planning on departing tomorrow morning, so that I would arrive immediately in Japan on my way to the school…" Negi rubbed the back of his head, a lot of embarrassment still there, even if he had stopped crying, somewhat. And suddenly, he felt a hand on his head.

"And by the way, stop crying! After all, you're the only one who I can depend on for solving this matter! You can't get all depressed, right? Just promise that you'll solve everything before one year from today passes! I need to come back home by that date!" Naruto gave Negi a big grin and a thumb up. Negi stared at the blonde for a few seconds and then smiled.

"R-Right!" While Negi's mood turned a bit for the better, much to Naruto's smile. Then, he began to think that he should at least leave a message or a Kage Bunshin behind to inform the pervert, even if he couldn't spare the details… Well, maybe his future whereabouts.

"Hey, you said we're going to… Japan, right?" Negi nodded in acknowledgment. "Why, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well… I'm going to be a teacher, actually… In a girls-only school." Naruto froze, thinking at what the boy had just said.

"… There's no way in hell I'm telling him that." No way in hell was he letting Jiraiya know about his whereabouts. He had to protect the female part of the world from him. Especially underage girls. To be on the safe side… "Before going, though, I need to tell my teacher I'm going somewhere. Then, we high-tail out of here, because I doubt he would let me go that easily."

"E-Eh?" Negi thought about it. If he needed to just tell him that he was going away, he guessed that it would be fine. "A-Alright…"

The following morning, after a good, needed night of sleep… "Ahhhahahah! Been months since I had this much fun!" Well, not really. Jiraiya that night did anything but sleep, it seemed. He nonetheless managed to slam the door open.

"Damn! Not so loudly, ero-sennin!" He was welcomed with the visage of his apprentice sitting cross legged on the floor, like he was waiting for him. "Alright. Listen to me and listen to me well. I…"

"Ahahah! Yeah, yeah… You'll tell me later, I'm going to sleep now. Wake me up… No, scratch that. I'll wake up on my own. Later." That said, Jiraiya threw himself into his futon and fell asleep with a loud snore. Naruto sighed while Negi got out of the room's closet.

"Ehm… Not to be a bother, but… We should go." The young boy said, and Naruto frowned.

"… Sounds like it's a written message, after all."

- BreakLine -

"Hnn… Darn." Naruto stretched as he and Negi waited at the station for the train to take them to the school. "I didn't get much sleep because I had to wait for the old idiot…"

"I'm sorry… But it's the first day of my assignment…" Negi said, only for Naruto to shake his head.

"Don't worry… Maybe it's better this way…" Naruto still shuddered at what could have been Jiraiya's reaction at knowing that he was going to accompany a kid at an all-girls school. Stop him? As if. He would have tagged along. _The horror… Oh, the horror…_

"Alright… But, ehm, another thing. Your clothes aren't…"

"Uh?" That was when Naruto noticed that a lot of people around were staring at him, thinking of him as a cosplayer, probably. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Whoops… Ahahahah… Oh, well. Be right back."

Naruto grinned and walked inside a bathroom. A few seconds later he came out and Negi sweatdropped. He was wearing a bigger version of his clothes, now, and no headband. "Ehm… Naruto-san, I think it would be a bit strange for us to have the same identical clothes…"

"Eheheheh, sorry, just wanted to mess with you…" Not really, but he needed to cover up. Seriously, though, he had copied even the staff. This time when he got out of the bathroom he was wearing more mundane clothes, a copy of a boy his age he had seen around before he boarded his own train, as in: a traditional Japanese male school uniform, winter version, black colours, open jacket to reveal a white shirt. "So? Better?"

"… Well, the handbag is…" He had morphed his rucksack in a handbag.

"Ah, right." He dropped the transformation on that part and it transformed back into a backpack. "Peeeeeeerfect, am I right?"

"… Yes. Only, it's February. It's quite cold, you know…" Negi sweatdropped even more. He decided to leave alone that it was a student uniform as Naruto morphed into a closed jacket version of the suit with an orange scarf over it. It was Japanese and it wasn't ninja. They would have to get him some real clothes, though. He remembered that the transformation could be dispelled, and it wouldn't do to have him suddenly puff out smoke and reappear dressed in different clothes. That was when the train arrived. "Ah! It's here! L-Let's go in!"

"Hmm… Looks pretty different than the one I saw in the snow country…" It wasn't completely made out of iron, for instance, but mostly, it didn't have loads of artillery hidden. Naruto walked inside with Negi only to find that the train car was almost completely full. Mostly with girls, all around Naruto's age.

"It's crowded…" Negi looked around while Naruto's attention was more on the fact that here people still went to school at this age. Where he came from only ninjas went to the academy. Civilians were taught from their own families. "And it sure has a lot of women…"

"Well, duh. This train stops in a all girls school… Whoof!" The sudden curve of the train, plus Naruto having a big backpack on his shoulders and not holding onto anything caused him to fall on top of Negi when a girl slammed into his back. "Darn! Are you okay, Negi?!"

"My head feels liiiiiiight…" Naruto cursed. Swirls in his eyes. He pulled him back on his feet while his ears caught giggles coming from the surrounding audience. Negi recovered and the two turned towards the girls to Naruto's left… Only to be met with feral grins. Naruto cursed inwardly. _Damn, not again! They're not THAT much older than me!_

"What are you doing here, kid? You got lost?"

"The next stops are only middle and high schools…"

"Ah, you're walking your big brother to school? Kawaaaai!"

"B-Big brother?" Naruto said with a bit of disbelief. Where did they look anything alike, he didn't know. Negi in the meanwhile, was just embarrassed by the situation, but he managed to think that maybe it could be a good cover up story. His big brother… Well, in japan they didn't mean that literally most of the times. Then, his nose itched.

"Ah… AT-CHOOOM!" He sneezed, and Naruto found himself with an eyeful of panties of various shapes and colours as an incredibly strong gust of wind lifted skirt after skirt. When it settled down, while the girls questioned each other about what had just happened, the blonde slowly turned his head towards the younger kid. "D-Damn, I hope I didn't catch a cold… ACK!"

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, YOU ERO-BRAT?!" The physical abuse in the form of shaking Negi like a rag doll was forgotten when the train stopped and a speaker 'spoke'.

_[U]Next Stop: Mahora Academy Central[/U]_ The metallic voice said, and that stopped Naruto too, much to Negi's relief. "Uhm… That's our stop too." Then the doors opened and the girls hurried out, the ones who were talking to them saying goodbye on the way out. The two followed suit… "… Wow." And Naruto saw his first stampede.

"Whah?! What's going on?! There are so many people!" Indeed. It was pretty chaotic with all the people running forward out of the station and down the lane with every possible way of locomotion known to men. Feet, trams, motorcycles, skateboards. Most of them, Naruto didn't know, but he could tell they were all in a hurry.

"Hey! What time is it?! Maybe they're running because it's late!"

"Eh?!" Negi pulled out his watch and indeed, he realized they were going to be late if he didn't run. "Ahhh! I can't be late my first day as a teacher!" That said, Negi gathered magic at his feet and sprinted forward, much to Naruto's surprise.

"Wow… He's fast…" He grinned. He always liked a challenge, even if he was the only one who considered it such. "Heh! You're not going to lose me that easily, Negi-kuuuuuuuuuuuun!" He crouched down, gathered chakra at his feet and jumped forward, landing by Negi's side and starting to run again. Other than having to keep a fast pace, they had to dodge the people falling behind them. "Damn, this is fun!"

"Fun?!" Negi replied while not letting down on his speed.

"Yeah! I mean, look around! The others are having fun too… Well, except for the ones who trip on their feet… Wah!" Naruto got startled and Negi blinked when a loud bark interrupted him. A bark, not coming from a dog, though. "… What the hell?"

"Hahaha… It looks like you really would do anything for Takahata-sensei. I didn't think you would actually do it…"

"I will kill you. Seriously." The bark had come from one of the two girls who were now walking in front of them, the one on the left with copper hair tied in two pigtails, much like his Oiroke no jutsu. The one menaced of death had long black hair and incredibly, she had to use rollerblades to keep up with the barking one.

"Aaaaand next, it says: 'Do a handstand with your legs spread and run as fast as you can for 50 meters while shouting 'Nya'!"

"I'M NOT DOING THAT!" It seemed like the black haired one was teasing her friend, Negi deduced, with some made up fortunes.

"Nya!" Just as they caught up with the girls, the trio turned to Naruto who had suddenly decided to follow the fortune and was indeed running with his hands with legs spread and shouting 'Nya' all over again. "Aaaaaaand fifty meters… I think." When done he flipped and landed on his feet again and began to run again normally. He was met with the bewildered stares of Negi and the two girls. "… What? It sounded fun!"

"… Hmph… Ahahahahah!" The black haired girl produced a beautiful round of laughter, much to Naruto's grinning, while the other two members of the audience kept on staring. "You're funny!"

"Thanks! So, what was that fortune for?" He asked, and the girl was happy to answer.

"Ah, it was a love fortune!" The copper haired girl just sweatdropped, muttering something about 'weirdoes' under her breath. "It was for Asuna, here. You know, she's got…"

"KONOKA, SHUT UP!" Finally a reaction from the girl now named Asuna, much to her friend's laughter. Negi found himself smiling. They seemed to be having fun. He wanted to join in.

"Excuse me…" They stopped running as they found themselves in front of a big set of stairs and Negi caught their attention. "'Your love will be unrequited.'"

"… Eh?" Asuna just stared for a few seconds because she didn't understand that she was talking to him. When she realized it, she exploded. "WHAT DID YOU SAY, YOU BRAT?!"

"Uwah?! W-Well, you were talking about fortunes, so…" Naruto groaned as Negi had gotten himself into another set of trouble.

"What are you doing here, by the way?" Naruto blinked and turned to the calmer of the two girls, missing Asuna lifting Negi by his head. "This is an all girls academy, and you don't seem to be wearing the uniform of any school around here."

"Ah… That." Naruto scratched the back of his head. He wasn't supposed to do the talking. "To tell the truth, Negi here…"

"That will be enough, Asuna-kun!" The violence on underage kids stopped thanks to a new voice. Naruto turned his head to the source, and found it in the person of an adult man with short hair, a little beard, and glasses. "Hey, Negi-kun! Long time no see!"

"T-Takahata-sensei?! G-Good morning!" Naruto suddenly paled. The girl had a crush on a man that much older than her. It was like Sakura crushing on Kakashi... Or worse, on Jiraiya.

"… I think I'm gonna be sick…" Naruto commented while Negi saluted Takamichi.

- BreakLine -

"Hnn… Hn?" Meanwhile, back in the fire country, Jiraiya woke up with a massive hangover. "Gh… Bathroom… Must… Take… Medicine… Oi, Naruto!" He looked around only to find no one in the room. "… Uh?" His attention was caught by the only element out of place. A letter to him, or better to 'The damn ero-drunkard-sennin'.

- BreakLine -

"I will be teaching English at this school. My name is Negi Springfield."

"EH?! W-WAIT JUST A MINUTE! YOU'RE A TEACHER?! A BRAT LIKE YOU?!"

"Hey, come on, Asuna…" Naruto was brought out of his sickness induced trance as Asuna physically assaulted Negi again.

"Ah, don't worry about it. He's actually quite smart." The beard man had gotten down from his office and was now by their side. "It seems that from today onwards, he'll be taking class A instead of me." Naruto cringed as the red-haired girl started shouting yet again.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! I DON'T WANT THIS KID! JUST A WHILE BACK HE WAS SAYING 'YOUR LOV…' Ehm, SOMETHING VERY RUDE TO ME!"

"But it's true…"

"IT'S NOT TRUE!" With tears in her eyes, she grabbed Negi by the scarf again. "I HATE KIDS! ESPECIALLY ANNOYING LITTLE FLEAS LIKE YOU!" Naruto sighed, and he could tell that Negi was starting to get ticked off as well.

"Hey, will you please…" Just as he was about to intervene, Negi sneezed. Unfortunately, Asuna was at point blank range when that happened. He blushed but then he raised an eyebrow. "… Woollen bear panties?"

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

- BreakLine -

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Of course, Jiraiya was quite sobered up by reading Naruto's letter, where after the berating for being a bad drunk and staying out the whole night, had told him that something had came up and that he would be away from the elemental countries for an year or so at most. "Shitshitshit…" As he summoned lots of frogs to help him to search, Jiraiya had but one thought in mind. "TSUNADE IS GOING TO KILL ME!"

- BreakLine -

"Negi-kun… This job will probably be very difficult…" After getting the violent girl dressed, they had been accompanied to the principal's office. To Naruto, the old man almost looked familiar, he gave a vibe similar to the Sandaime's one, the wise old man one, specifically. Of course, Konohamaru had never managed to lay a hand on him, while this one had been punted in the head by a hammer by his granddaughter, alias Konoka. He had had a chance to remove his scarf and backpack as the other people in the room talked. He had also opened up again the buttons of the jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "If it's too hard for you, you will have to return home. There are no second chances. Are you prepared to accept that?"

"Y-Yes! I'll do it!" If nothing, Negi had drive, Naruto acknowledged. "Please let me try!"

"Hmmm… Then, it's settled. Before that, though…" Naruto flinched when he noticed the man's only visible eye settling on him. "Who might your friend be? I though you were to come alone…"

"A-Ah… Well…" With everything that had happened, Negi hadn't prepared a suitable excuse. "Naruto-san, is a friend of my nee-chan. She asked him to look out for me as I stay in Japan and he accepted, since he hadn't been in Japan yet."

"Y-Yeah! I'm a traveller! I love to travel!" Naruto decided to go along with Negi's plan, but felt really uneasy as the principal's eye was on him, observing for everything he was worth, it seemed.

"Hmmm… Ohohoh. Understandable. You are just ten years old, after all." The two comrades in lie sighed in relief. "Then, it's settled. Let's begin today. Let me introduce you to our staff guidance officer, Shizuna-sensei."

While Negi got a faceful of cleavage, Naruto thought that maybe it wouldn't be so hard for Negi to do his work, find out what had happened to them and not be discovered and turned into an ermine at the same time.

"Konoka, Asuna-chan, can Negi-kun stay in your room for a while? We haven't decided where he's going to stay yet."

… _Damn._ As hell broke loose again, he plunged his ears… And then realized that he hadn't mentioned him. "H-Hey, jii-san! What about me?!"

"Ohohoh. Don't worry, I already thought about that as well. You'll get a notice after the end of the lessons. Now, you should hurry. Classes are about to start." The principal said, and that seemed to satisfy Naruto and to call for a momentary truce between Asuna and Negi…

- BreakLine -

"Seriously, what the hell is her problem?" Or so he thought. Naruto whispered in a harsh voice as the two girls walked away, after Asuna's suggestion of going and camp outside for the night. While Naruto had done so a lot of times, he doubted that Negi had done the same.

"Uhuhuh… That girl is always rowdy, but she's really a nice person." Shizuna intervened on Asuna's behalf, but Naruto just answered with a really sceptical look.

"Ah. So she has a split personality?" That earned a chuckle from the grown woman, which resulted in Naruto getting his hair ruffled, much to his embarrassment.

"Here, take the class roll. I'm sure you will be okay, Negi-kun… With Naruto-san's help, of course." The woman handed the younger boy a leather-clad thing and then pointed at a classroom through a set of glass windows. "Here we are. This is your class."

"Uh? Let me see…" Naruto turned in the pointed direction almost immediately as he began to observe. All girls, of course, and quite an assortment too. Tall, short, tanned, pale, blue, red, blonde hair, glasses, long ears… The last one sounded off. He shrugged it off and then turned to Negi with a big grin. It was time to tease him a little. "Oh, well… I guess it's time to make your entrance, Negi. You're a real teacher, now! No harassing your students though, alright?"

"N-Naruto-san!" Negi squeaked in outrage, much to Naruto's enjoyment. Then, he focused, trying to find his resolve. He had come that far from home, with such an important assignment… He wouldn't let down his sister nor his friends. He swallowed and gripped one of his hands. _I… I can do this._

"Hmm…" Naruto noticed the younger boy's uneasiness, and he smiled. It reminded him of himself when he took the Chunin exams. A little scared, but really excited… Well, maybe more like when he discovered that Zabuza was still alive. "Hey, I'll introduce you. How does that sound?!"

"Eh?! N-Naruto-san!" Too late. Naruto was already opening to the classroom, cue all the girls falling in religious silence as the blonde stepped in… And the blackboard duster fell on his head. "N-Naruto-san!"

"Ara…" Shizuna immediately became uneasy because of that. Naruto just slowly removed the duster from his head and dropped it to the ground, his face frozen in a frown, not that he was visible because of the chalk and the hair.

"… A duster? Seriously?" He said, taking a step forward… And carelessly stepping into a tense piece of rope. "WAH!" All hell broke loose as he fell forward and a bucket full of water fell on top of his head. His momentum had not ended, though, and because of that he turned on himself just so that three suction caps arrows stuck themselves to his butt, and he finally slammed upside down, back first, into the teacher's desk.

"Ara ara…" Shizuna winced and murmured.

"N-NARUTO-SAN!" Negi was more vocal and a lot more shocked as almost the whole classroom laughed at the blonde's expenses while he laid down, head first on the ground, immobile.

"… Who was it?" The laughter died like a certain flower in a fire at the sound of Naruto's low voice. No one dared to utter a word as he slowly got back in a normal standing position and he turned to stare at the classroom, who seemed to shudder as one man… Well, girl, except for a few people. "I said. Who. Was. It."

Like Naruto had suddenly gotten Kenobi as a surname, lots of people immediately pointed at two small girls sitting side by side. Even if his head was still covered by the bucket… Ah, maybe Skywalker, instead of Kenobi. The voice sounded a bit metallic because of the particular headwear.

"H-HEY!"

"Y-YOU TRAITORS!"

"It was you…?" The two girls 'Iiik'ed together as Naruto brought his hands to the side of the bucket and slowly lifted it to reveal… "Damn, that was a great prank! Good job!" A grinning Naruto with soaked hair, much to the class' surprise. Asakura was certain she would have to write her first necrology. Negi and Shizuna were confused as well, but the older woman smiled fondly right after. "Seriously! Good job! One nitpick, though…"

Naruto crouched down near the tense rope, and lifted it a few centimetres. "It should be at this height! That way, I would have somersaulted over the desk and into the wall on the other end of the room!"

"R-Really?!" Fuuka's eyes began to sparkle, much to her twin sister's nervous laughing, and then began to take notes.

"Ehm… I'm sorry to interrupt…" Naruto let go of the rope and finally rubbed his hair to get the water out of them as a girl with long blonde hair got up from her seat. "But… Who might you be? We were told we would meet our new teacher, today…"

"Ah, that's not me! I don't even know what English is!" Naruto admitted, causing a few girls to chuckle, even if he didn't mean it as a joke.

"He is your new teacher." Shizuna finally cut in, pushing Negi inside the classroom, and shifting the attention on him. "Come on, introduce yourself, Negi-kun."

"Y-Yes." Negi swallowed again as he slowly walked up behind the teacher's desk and faced the classroom. "I… I… My name is Negi Springfield. From today onwards I'll be teaching mag-Uh… English at this school. I'll only be here for three terms, but it's nice to meet you all." Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds before part of it exploded.

"KYAAAAA! HE'S SO CUTE!" Naruto moved out of the way of the stampede, feeling sorry for Negi. While when he was young it had never happened to him for obvious reasons, it had seen it happen to Sasuke with his fangirls. He didn't laugh, that time, and he wasn't laughing now that they hugged, pulled and pinched and asked him lots of questions.

"Negi-kun has all the credentials, of course, but as you can see he's younger than you girls. Treat him nicely, ok?" Shizuna said, and the class replied with a collective 'OK'.

"Ehm, not that I want to be a bother, but shouldn't he like… Start his lesson or something?" Naruto said with a sweatdrop as the girls kept on pampering him and embarrassing him like hell.

"He's right." Naruto turned around as the blonde girl from before talked again, and surprisingly the whole classroom stopped and listened to her. "Everyone return to your seats. You're making trouble for sensei. Also…" The tall girl turned to Naruto again as he crossed his arms over his chest. "We still don't know who you are."

"Ah! Right!" Naruto instinctively snapped his fingers and then decided to show off a little. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to write his name in Kanji, in huge letters, on the blackboard, filling it completely, before turning to the class again with a huge grin on his face. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto! And my ambition is to be… The souban of all Japan!"

"… Heh?" The whole class stared at Naruto, including the ones who actually knew what a souban was. Naruto blinked.

"Uh… I don't know where that came from. What's a souban, by the way?" Naruto said, scratching the back of his head. "Uh, whatever. I'm Negi's friend and his guardian, we could say. So… No harassment, or I will show you why I was known as the King of Pranks back in my village!"

"F-Fuuka, will you stop it with the sparkling eyes? It's getting creepy…"

- BreakLine -

"Ohohoh… It's exactly as I thought. My, what were the chances?" Konoe Konoemon could see like a silly old man at first sight, but like many have said, there's more than meets the eye. If one could see the possessions he kept hidden from the world, they would be shocked. One of those was a big collection of photographs. Some taken by he himself, others sent by friends. The photograph he was holding in his hands was among the second group, and confirmed a suspicion. "It really seems destiny, isn't it, my old friend?"

- BreakLine -

"I guess my first lesson was a failure…"

"Things that happen… Especially when you have disturbed personalities in your class roll. No, seriously. She does at least have some self-control issues." Naruto commented as the two sat under the steps of a pretty big monument. The lesson had been a disaster indeed, since Asuna hadn't stopped antagonizing Negi for a single second. It had ended up in a big brawl between her and the class rep, which Naruto now knew was called Yukihiro Ayaka. "And the principal said that you have to sleep at her home?"

"Ahahahah… Naruto-san, do you have a spare bedroll?" Naruto rolled his eyes at Negi's poor attempt at humour, and then began to observe his surroundings.

"… You know, this school is enormous. It looks more like a small city…" Naruto said as he looked around. He couldn't finish counting the buildings and he could swear he had seen some kind of forest. "I wonder just how big is it… Heh. Maybe it has secret dungeons too… Hey, are you listening?"

"… Looks like she's got a whole stack of books. Isn't that dangerous?" The blonde blinked, not understanding what Negi was talking about till he saw what he was staring at. A girl carrying a pile of books high from her waist to her nose and a bit more walking down a set of stairs without a railing. And as on cue, she suddenly tripped and fell to the side. "I knew it!"

"Oh, damn it! Do you bring ill luck or something?!" Naruto was immediately on his feet, but he wasn't so fast that he could reach the girl before she fell to the ground, unless he used… He couldn't even finish of thinking before Negi acted on his own. The young boy sprinted forward and in an instant he was in Naruto's field of vision and under the girl, shielding her from the hard, hard ground. "… That…"

"Oow… A… Are you okay, Miyazaki-san?" Negi said to the momentarily stunned girl, who still hadn't recovered from the fall.

"That was awesome! How…" Then, Naruto noticed that they weren't alone. Another person was around. The worst person ever. "Oh, shit." Naruto didn't want Negi to become an ermine before he had managed to understand what the deal was with that card. Before he could reach them, though, the girl had disappeared with staff and kid. "Damn, she can run fast!"

"S-Sensei? A-Asuna-san?" That's when Naruto remembered that Nodoka had most probably still hurt herself. "Ah. Senpai…"

"Senpai?" Naruto stopped as he kneeled down near the girl. "Ah, for the school uniform, I bet. I'm not a student anywhere, you know…"

"S-Still…" Naruto shushed her by waving his hand.

"Later. Negi got you just in time, but… Does it hurt anywhere?" Naruto asked, observing the girl's legs, who had a few scrapes here and there.

"I-I don't think so… Ah!" The girl let out a yelp of pain as she tried to put her foot on the ground by bending her leg.

"Hmm… The ankle. Probably when you fell…" Naruto scratched the top of his nose in thought, then sighed. _I'm worried about Negi, but I doubt the girl can hurt him, if what I've seen is what he can do with magic…_ "Well, heave-ho!"

"Ah! Aaaaah!" Nodoka flushed and squeaked out of embarrassment as Naruto lifted her up from the ground bridal style. "S-Senpai!"

"Can't have you walk on a twisted ankle, can I?" Naruto deadpanned with an admonishing stare, to which Nodoka promptly surrendered.

"B-But the books…" The girl's head turned towards the scattered tomes, and Naruto sighed.

"Alright, alright…"

"E-Eh?! K-KYAAA!" Naruto suddenly lifted her over his head and made her sit over his shoulder. "S-SENPAI! T-THIS…!"

"It's either this or leave all your pretty books here in the dirt." That stopped Nodoka's speech of outrage, but not her face to be filled with dangerous levels of blood. "Grab on tight on my head while I use my arms to carry these things." _Damn, can't use my Kage Bunshin… Now I understand how annoying being an undercover civilian feels like._ "You'll have to guide me to the infirmary, though. It's my first day here."

"B-B-B-B-But…" Nodoka blushed even more at the thought of someone seeing her in that situation, but Naruto's stare was a 'no' to any complaints. She just blushed even more and weakly nodded while crossing her hands under Naruto's chin. "T-The main building…"

"The big one over there? Alright."

- BreakLine -

"Nodoka… Next time you have to carry all these books, ask for help."

"I-I'm sorry to be such a bother…" Nodoka shyly replied as one of her classmates, Izumi Ako, bandaged her swollen leg. Meanwhile Naruto was sitting in another chair, going through a few pages of the book he was helping carry.

"Nonsense. I'm a nurse, right? Just try to be more careful." Ako smiled as she finished applying the bandage, before putting the roll back in the first aid kit and turning to Naruto. "But I must say, Uzumaki-san, carrying both her and the books all the way here by your own… Are you sure you're not sore or strained?"

"Pretty sure! I've carried lots of heavy things in my life with my shoulders and arms! There's no way something as light as Nodoka-chan could strain me!" Naruto answered with a grin, making the nurse giggle and the librarian flush again.

"Well, I have to go. Please rest a bit more and try to not put much weight on that leg, Nodoka." Ako smiled and left the two alone in the infirmary, much to Nodoka's even further embarrassment.

"Uhm… S-Senpai…" Nodoka gently grasped the sheets of the bed. "Thank you for your help…"

"Think nothing of it." Naruto grinned and then turned a page of the book he was reading. "So… You like books, Nodoka-chan?"

"Y-Yes. A lot…" Nodoka was grateful for the change of subject, even more glad that it was something she could talk about. "What about you, senpai?"

"Well… Not really. I mean… I've never found any appeal, in reading, you know?" Naruto answered truthfully, turning yet another page. Nodoka flinched and stopped talking. "Hmmm… I've always found it useless, to tell the truth…"

"Take that back!" It was Naruto's turn to be startled, this time, so much that he dropped the book he was holding. He raised his head back up and threw it back just to find himself staring at a pretty angry Nodoka. One of her eyes was even visible, and narrowed. Then, it downed on her what she had just done. "Ahhh! I-I'm sorry! I…"

"N-No! Not at all! I'm the one who should be sorry!" Naruto immediately stopped her from apologizing, having realized that he had just offended her. He lowered his head, his turn to be embarrassed. "It's just… I should have explained it better… I mean, I've always lived on a… Very limited budget, we can say. I didn't have that much to spend on books… So, I never given it a try, since it was 'useless'… As in, not a necessity."

"… Oh." Nodoka this time didn't feel embarrassed but a bit sad for her newest acquaintance. "But… Didn't they have a library, back at your home?"

"Ehm… Yes, but… Let's just say that they didn't want me there…" Naruto confessed. He wasn't welcome in much of Konoha when he was young, sadly.

"H-How… How horrible…" The librarian herself was almost outraged. That someone could deny entry to a library to anyone, to her, was one of the biggest crimes ever.

"I guess…" Naruto said and he recovered the book he had dropped and dusted it off before returning it to the pile on the nearby desk. "Well, but if you like it that much, I guess it isn't that bad, Nodoka-chan."

"I-It is not." Nodoka shook her head from side to side. "Reading is… I love reading. Books can give you so many emotions… And satisfactions." The girl was instinctively holding her hands on her chest, her fingers crossed together, like she was praying. "Whenever I read a good book, it's like I see a new world… Many other worlds that I can discover and explore along with the characters… Be it a scary world, a happy world, a sad world, it's always… Beautiful."

Naruto had stopped talking and had found himself staring at Nodoka as she talked, and he noticed how with each word she let out, her hair seemed to part till they revealed the eyes hidden underneath and her smile grew little by little. "… Nodoka-chan, you do realize that I'm not going to be able to say anything bad about books ever again, now?"

"R-Really? That's good." She said with a big smile, and Naruto found himself grinning back.

"Alright! Then, let's do this! Once the lessons are over, I'm going to help you bring these books to the library –that's where you were going, right- and you're going to help me choose a book to read! Deal?" Naruto extended his hand to her and Nodoka nodded, extending her own one and shaking it.

"Deal." Naruto liked the school already. If all the girls of Negi's class were like Nodoka, it would be really interesting to stay there for a while.

- BreakLine -

"So… You became friends?" That was probably the most surprising notice of the day. They had started the morning like cat and dog but they had ended up friendly. He was talking about Negi and Asuna, of course.

"Yes… She's not bad once you get to know her." Negi replied with a chuckle.

"Heh… Good for you…" Naruto then narrowed his eyes and grabbed the baby teacher's head, rubbing his right hand's knuckles on his scalp for good measure. "Especially because she discovered that you're a mage. If we go by the media of one a day, by the end of the year there will be 365 people aware of your secret, Negi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun…"

"Ahhhhh! Alright! Alright! I'll be more careful!" Hearing Negi's pleas for help, Konoka and Asuna turned around and laughed at the English boy's expenses. Then Konoka punched her own open right hand.

"Ah! Right!" Konoka's hands went for her handbag, out of which she produced a bundle of cloth wrapped in plastic that she then promptly offered to Naruto. "Naruto-san, this is from grandpa."

"Uh?" The ninja picked the bundle of plastic and observed it, only to find out, with surprise, that they were an exact copy of the clothes he was wearing, down to the shoes and the scarf, and he could see some kind of long coat along with them. "Heh?! Clothes?! But…"

"Grandpa said something like… 'It won't do for you to not have real clothes'. I didn't really get what he was talking about, though…" Konoka said, smiling as ever, oblivious to the expression of shock that the two partners in 'crime' shared, but Asuna wasn't.

"What's wrong with you two?" She asked, and Naruto recovered enough.

"N-Nothing! It's nothing!" He then turned around with Negi and brought the young teacher's head down along with his own, to whisper undisturbed. "W-W-What the hell?! He noticed?! That old man?!"

"I-I-I-I don't understand how… But, if he knew about my assignment, I bet that he's a mage too…" Negi tried to explain.

"But I'm a ninja, not a mage! How did he understand that I was transformed?! How does he know about ninjutsu?!" Naruto shouted while whispering, and that's actually quite hard, you know, mostly because it can hurt your throat.

"H-How should I know?!" Negi whispered-shouted back, a little miserable. "Well, even if he does know… Is it bad? What does it change?"

"What does…" Naruto blinked, thinking about Negi's words. "Uh… Nothing, actually."

"Naruto-saaaaan… You scared me for nothing!" Negi whined and the blonde laughed nervously, embarrassed.

"Ahahahah… Sorry, sorry. It's just… Unexpected. I'm still curious, actually." Naruto laughed a bit more before returning back to whisper mode. "By the way, today we've got separated, but nothing happened. So we can write off something happen with distance, right? Well, at least a few hundred meters… Ah!" Asuna had grabbed him by one of his ears, earning a yelp of pain from him.

"Alright, enough whispering. We've got to get back home and Negi has to come with us. It's getting late." She admonished them, and Naruto struggled to get free.

"Alright! Alright! Just let me go!" She complied and Naruto's hands immediately went to his now bit red ear. "That's some crazy strength you got there… I wonder who would win between you and Sakura-chan… Uh…" Then, Naruto remembered something. "Hey! Wait a minute! Where am I supposed to stay?! The old man didn't say anything about me! Do I really have to camp outside?! Damn, I even left my luggage in his office…"

"Oh, right! I almost forgot!" Konoka suddenly exclaimed, bringing a hand with the index finger stretched up, looking at the sky like what she had almost forgot was suddenly up in the sky above her. "Grandpa said that your luggage has already been brought to your apartment. You will be sharing it with some people who had spare space, he said."

"Ah… Good." Naruto calmed down and crossed his arms over his chest. "And where exactly is the place and who I will be sleeping with?"

- BreakLine -

"You'll be taking the bed above mine. Is that alright with you, Naruto-san?"

"… Yes." He couldn't say anything more, still a bit shocked with the sudden development of the last few minutes. After getting the address, he walked to the apartment he would be sharing, only to find out with dread that it was in the dormitory, since he, Negi, Asuna and Konoka hadn't gone different ways every time he had asked for directions. The dormitory of a girls only school.

Thinking about a joke, he nonetheless walked to the room and knocked, and yet he found out that it wasn't a joke. As the girls confirmed to him, each in her own way, that he was supposed to live with them for the 'time being', it finally downed on him that he was going to share the room with not one, not two but three girls, all from Negi's class.

"Yeeah! It's gonna be so much fun!" Naruto stopped himself from shrieking in terror as Shiina Sakurako launched herself at him, latching around his neck from behind.

"H-Hey! You're bothering Naruto-san, Shiina!" Kugimiya Madoka, the most level-headed of the three, admonished her friend for her behaviour, a blush on her face.

"Ah, come. It's not like she's cutting off his hair supply." Only to be negated any effect by the third occupant of the apartment, Kakizaki Misa, who just grinned and walked to Naruto as well, putting a head over his hair, much to his further embarrassment. "Wow, your hair is so soft Naruto-senpai! Heh, I like that! Naruto-senpai!"

"… Really?" Naruto shivered as Madoka seemed to have fallen in the trap as well and she gently grabbed a handful of hair as well. "Wah! It's softer than mine! It's amazing!"

"Hey! Me too!" Sakurako seized her own handful a bit harsher than what she intended to do, much to Naruto's chagrin. "Waaaaah! Naruto-san, what shampoo do you use?! Please, you've got to tell meeeeeee!"

"G-G-G-G-G-GOTTA GO TAKE A BATH!" With an incredible feat of speed, Naruto had gotten out of the three girls' grasp, grabbed what he needed from his backpack and flew out of the door before the three girls even realized they were grabbing air.

"Ah! I grasped too hard!" Or in Sakurako's case, a few strands of hair.

- BreakLine -

"Owowowow… What a grip!" Naruto whined as he rubbed his sore scalp, heading for the common bath that he had seen while walking up the stairs, since there was no way he was taking a shower in the apartment with the girls still inside. "Geez, this keeps getting more and more troublesome… Well, I bet that ero-sennin would be proud of me, actually… And he would 'encourage me' in peeking and things like that…"

Naruto gently leaned a hand on his face and shook his head. Thankfully it seemed that he hadn't gotten that part of Jiraiya's teaching yet. There was no way in hell he was becoming a pervert. Sakura would kill him. "… I wonder how's everyone doing in the village."

He opened the bath's door and leaned the basket on the ground as he started stripping. "I mean, it's been two years since I've last seen Konoha… Did they rebuild the village? I wonder if they've been training too… Well, as much as myself, actually." So focused was on thinking out loud and reminiscing about his hellish training sessions, that Naruto didn't notice that there were already spaces occupied with clothes in the dressing room.

"Growth spurt apart, the main reason I had to change my clothes was because they had gotten so ruined that repair was impossible. Not even Haku ripped them up like that, and he stabbed me with needles again and again. Jeez…" He wrapped the towel around his waist and emptied the content of the basked in a bucket, then he walked to the sliding door that separated the dressing room from the actual bath, opening it with a sharp tug. "I swear, sometimes I think he's exacting revenge because I don't like that stuff he writes…"

"What kind of stuff?"

"Smut. He calls it 'art', but it's just ecchi novels." Naruto sneered and slowly sat himself on a stool after grabbing a pot full of hot water and then emptying it on his head. "And incredibly, there's a lot of people buying those things! He's famous! I can't believe so many people in the world are perverts!"

"Hoihoihoi, you'd be surprised, Naruto-san!"

"Geez, I don't want to grow up, then." Naruto poured some shampoo on his head and started rubbing till his whole scalp was covered in foam. "Ah, damn. I forgot to fill the bucket again."

"Don't worry, sensei! I got it!"

"Ah." Naruto closed his eyes instinctively as more water washed over his body and cleaned him of the shampoo. "Hey, thanks… Wait." Naruto suddenly froze as he realized that he wasn't alone in the bathroom, and that he had heard at least three different voices answering to him. All the indications and clues he had gotten ever since arriving there should have make him understand what was going on, but still, he turned around.

More students from Negi's class, and while just three people had started talking to him, there were at least seven of them in the bath. His eyes fell on the ones nearest to him, the ones who had talked to him and helped him with the water. The one who had helped him with the water was the girl whose prank he had undergone that morning. The second girl who he had talked to… There was no way she was a middle school student. She was too high and too… Big. The first girl who had talked to him when he had entered the bathroom was wearing glasses while in the bath, and had long black hair. "… I…" He didn't observe the rest of the bath. He chose oblivion. He fainted and landed hard on his back.

"Ahhhhh! Sensei!" Narutaki Fuuka was immediately by the side of her 'sensei', as she had chose to address him.

"Ahhh… He is such a pure soul, de gozaru… He just saw a bit of flesh and he fainted…" Nagase Kaede chuckled while observing the situation.

"W-WILL YOU GET HIM OUT OF HERE, ALREADY?! OR AT LEAST HELP HIM!" Ayaka-Iincho was more vocal in her 'suggestions'.

"… I think one should perform BLS, in this case." Many heads turned to the form of Ayase Yue hearing those words. The blue haired girl sweatdropped at the sudden attention and display of ignorance.

"C-CPR! It's CPR…" Nodoka said, still hiding behind her towel and a rock from the moment Naruto had walked in, along with the class representative

"C-CPR?!" The blond class representative blushed at the thought and her eyes wandered to Naruto's form. Then she swallowed and voiced the question that was hanging in the air. "T-Then… W-Who… Who…"

"Who's going to administer it?" Evangeline Mc Dowell finished for her, and everyone's eyes but her own one turned to Naruto again.

_[I_

_]To be continued…_

_In the next chapter…_

After the bath's dis-adventure, Naruto suddenly realizes that Negi is probably a magnet for trouble, but he then discovers that he himself doesn't joke either. From love potions to bears to dodgeball matches. How will everything evolve? Stay tuned!


	2. Second Hour

… Funny thing. This has been posted for WEEKS on my Blog, Storie In Rosso. O_O I totally forgot to post it here! Sorry about that!

Meinos Kaen out!

**Pactio! Quindecim  
Second hour: Ghosts and Dodgeball**

"I can't! I'm saving my first kiss for someone special! My life would be forever marked by my charitable gesture to the point that I would be too pure for anything but a chantry!"

"Talk about an overactive imagination…" Haruna commented on Ayaka's choice of words to express her outrage.

"If he breathes just fine, there's no need for CPR…"

"I'll do it! I can't let sensei die!"

"Onee-chan, you don't know how to do CPR! Stop!" Yue's words were ignored for the sake of drama, sadly. The blue haired girl sighed and decided to return her attention to washing her body.

"Ahh… Then, it's simple. Who still has to give her first kiss, please raise your hand. That way you'll be exempted." Kaede said and in doing so she raised her hand along with everyone in the bathroom except for one girl… And everyone's but her face became a mask of abject horror.

"… Huh?" Actually, Evangeline wasn't paying attention at all. That was why she hadn't raised her hand. A vein appeared on her forehead as she heard the muttered words 'loli' 'courage' 'enko' and so on. "H-Hey! Who's the loli? What are you muttering? STOP MUTTERING! AND FOR GOD'S SAKE, HE'S BREATHING! I CAN HEAR HIM ALL THE WAY FROM HERE! JUST GET HIM OUT OF THE WATER AND COVER HIM AND HE WILL BE FINE!"

"Ahahahah, Eva is right. I'll do it." Kaede acknowledged the girl's words and picked Naruto up from the ground while Yue secretly pouted, since when she herself had said that everyone had ignored her. "Oh? Hmm, how strange…"

"Eh? What's strange?" Ayaka asked, a bit curious because Kaede's usual mischievous tone had been tinted with a trace of amusement and interest.

"Well, Naruto-san's body. He's ripped." That comment made most of the girls in the bathroom blush, with the exception of Eva, Haruna and Kaede herself. Nodoka had submerged herself in the water. "He has a finely toned body all over. Balanced, like an athlete. I guess travelling is good exercise, de gozaru!"

"W-W-Whatever! Will you cover him, already? Or do you want to check under his towel too?" Ayaka sighed. She sure had some easygoing classmates.

"Well, why not! Let's take a pe~ek."

"HAVE YOU NO SHAME?"

- Break -

"My life currently sucks…" Naruto mused as he massaged his temples, not because he felt ill or anything like that, but just for the hell of it. He felt like anyone else would do so. First the three girls, then the bathroom incident, then when he woke up.

- A couple hours before -

"Ghh…" Naruto woke up with a light headache which quickly disappeared, feeling pretty strange. He didn't remember his body being that heavy. That was when someone snuggled against his chest. Further, that is. His eyes shot open and he stared in abject terror at the girl currently snuggling against him, sleeping in his same bed. "S-S-S-S-S-Sakurako-chan!"

"Hmm… Huh?" The girl snuggled a little more before raising her head and sitting on the bed, and consequently, on him. She then rubbed her eyes and made a few cute noises before smiling at him. "Good morning, Naruto-senpai!"

"Good morning to you too, BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY BED?" The girl just laughed a bit more before throwing herself back on him, earning a shriek of terror from the blonde shinobi.

"Because you looked so cute while you were sleeping that I just had to hug you! Then I fell asleep, I guess…" Naruto was currently restrained, otherwise he would have slapped his own face with a wide open palm. "By the way, we were pretty worried when Kaede-san brought you back passed out from the open bath! What happened?"

"Passed out…" And then it came back to him. All of it. His face became red as a tomato as a consequence, and he realized that if he continued on remembering the scenery of the past evening and Sakurako kept on snuggling against him, he would need a very long, very cold shower. "… Sakurako-chan, can you get off me? I would like to get up from my bed."

"Okay!" The girl complied and slowly descended from the bed. As soon as he had freedom of movement, Naruto launched himself into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him, effectively waking up Madoka and Misa in the process.

- Break -

"Well, at least Madoka-chan cooks well. I had a good breakfast." Always trying to find the bright side in everything, our Naruto.

"Ahahah. I'm sorry to hear that. I guess the girls are a bit overexcited at having an older boy around…" Negi commented and Naruto snorted.

"Not as excited as they are at having a baby teacher, though." Negi blushed and Naruto sniggered as the boy realized that indeed, he had been the one most subject to snuggling and group glomping incidents. "So, Asuna found out you're a mage?"

"Yes, but she won't tell anyone anything. Shizuna-san was right about her. She's a good girl." Negi said with a smile, and Naruto rolled his eyes.

"I guess… Oh, well. No use in moping around. You've got a lesson to do. Aaaaand hop." As Negi walked through the door, Naruto caught the duster before it fell on the young teacher's head. "Fuuka-chaaaaaan. It _is_ a classic, but it works only once."

"Tsk." The petite prankster girl mumbled a bit under her breath but she smiled nonetheless. As the class did the 'stand' routine, Naruto observed the girls and most importantly how a few of them were staring at him blushing. Ayaka was giving him a somewhat stern look, but she then sighed.

'_I should be angry at such carelessness but since you're Negi-sensei's guardian I forgive you?' Or something like that… What's with her obsession with Negi, by the way?_ Naruto asked himself, while he noticed how a few more girls were staring at him, and he deduced that it was the summa of the ones that he had walked on in the bath. _Better avoid thinking about it. They don't seem to have made a big deal out of it, fortunately. Sakura-chan would have hit me… By the way, I have to find something to do while Negi teaches his lessons. I'm bored right now._

"Well then, let's begin first period." Negi opened the book he was holding in his hands and turned around to face the class. "Please open your textbooks to page 76." Naruto stared as Negi read in a language that he didn't understand, and he guessed that it was the famous English.

_'Might as well start reading the book Nodoka-chan gave me.'_ True to his word, Naruto had walked Nodoka to the library and he had borrowed a book she had suggested to him. After asking a few things about what he liked, he had been presented with a copy of the 'Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya'. _'So weird. I'm so going to tell ero-sennin about this when I go back.'_

-Break-

"Seriously, go see a doctor or something. You seem to only sneeze when you're in her presence. What's up with that?" The English lesson had been the scenario of another incident regarding Asuna getting stripped to her underwear by Negi's sneezing.

"M-Maybe it's the shampoo she uses. Ahahahah." Negi sighed as the two boys were sitting on the same steps of the same fountain as the previous day. "She kept glaring at me for the duration of class."

"Can you blame her, though? Good thing this is a girls-only school." Naruto turned another page of the book and he sniffed a bit. "... This book is really, really strange." _'I mean, the main character in this book is-'_

"Ano... Negi-sensei, Naruto-senpai." The two boys interrupted the reading and moping when a familiar voice got their attention. Naruto smiled when he found it was Nodoka, along with two other girls from Negi's class.

"Excuse us, sensei, we have some questions about today's lesson." The tall one wearing glasses said, and then the events of the previous evening came back to Naruto. He blushed scarlet and turned away, covering his face with the book. Nodoka mimicked him almost immediately.

"Uh?" Negi just blinked, not really understanding what was going on but having notice the almost identical reaction from the two. "Naruto-san, what's wrong? Something happened between you and Miyazaki-san?"

"NO! NOTHING!" Naruto and Nodoka retorted in perfect synchronicity, and he uncovered his face, realizing he was acting suspiciously. He coughed into his fist, trying to gain back some degree of control. Then, he noticed something, as Nodoka de-hid herself as well. A change of style that could become the change of subject they needed. "Nodoka-chan, you changed your hairstyle?"

"Eh? Ah..." Suddenly self-conscious about herself and the eye showing, Nodoka took a step back and lowered her head. "Ehm, I-I had not much time for hair, this morning. I-"

"Ah, come on! It suits you! I mean, people have a right to know what colour your eyes are, right? Eh, Negi?" Negi nodded, whle the ninja grinned as he moved to observe her better even if she tried to basically hid her head, and then whistled. "Hey, that's a pretty colour. Deep blue... It's the first time I see such eyes, Nodoka-chan. You should definitely keep this hair-style!"

"Doesn't it? Doesn't it just? Isn't it cute? She's such a cute girl, but she never shows her face!" While it was just Haruna who shouted her opinions, Yue helped her to further uncover Nodoka's face, much to her discomfort.

"Ah... Eh... Ahhhh!" She blushed even further and then ran away, Haruna and Yue quickly after her.

"Ahahahah! Miyazaki-san is so well behaved, huh?" Negi commented on the situation, and Naruto rolled his eyes.

"Don't ever speak bad of books in front of her, though." Naruto commented, and dismissed Negi's confusion with a wave of his right hand. Then he closed his book and put it into one of the pockets of the coat the principal had gifted him with. "So, when do you start researching our problem?"

"Well, I think it would be more careful to settle in, first." Negi brought a hand to his glasses as he tilted them, his mind-gears turning on each other. "We need to find out about places and times when we can research without risk of getting discovered."

"Yeah, I guess it's the sensate thing to do." Naruto nodded in approval. He stretched his body and started flexing, like a track athlete does before a race. "I will look around for a bit, then. What will you be doing?"

"Ehm, I will try to think of a way to make it up to Asuna-san." Negi flushed, still embarrassed at his earlier screw up. Naruto smiled at him and then ruffled his hair.

"You're a good kid, you know that? Catch you later!" That said, Naruto sprinted forward, but still at a 'normal speed', to avoid catching suspicions. Too bad that he was used to Konoha's standards. The dust cloud trail he was leaving behind him was emblematic.

-Break-

"Damn, which class was this again?" Naruto scratched the top of his head with the pencil he was holding, because he was doing something not really used to: taking notes accurately and precisely, since that was the one thing they couldn't screw up. He brought the top of the pencil to his mouth. "Well, with the distance I've covered, we can safely say that whatever bad mojo I have on me, it isn't triggered by distance... Where the hell did I read bad mojo, anyway?"

He wrote another note on the pad he was holding as he raised his head and found the class name on the overhead panel and then turned to the last classroom he still had to check. He opened the sliding door slowly and found no one in immediate sight. "Hmm, another vacant one, I see... Huh?" Naruto's ears caught an almost imperceptible sound, like someone puffing, pushing air out of one's mouth very hard. He turned in the direction he came from and blinked when he noticed that he wasn't alone in the classroom.

A girl with silver hair and red eyes, which crept him out a little, was kneeling on the ground with a book in front of her, and was trying to turn the pages by blowing air, her cheeks reddening cutely for the effort. Naruto instinctively brought the pencil to his right cheek again, scratching it. "Ano... Sorry to intrude, but what the hell are you doing?"

"Hmmm!" The girl ignored him and blew on the pages of the book again, to no avail. They seemed pretty much glued together. The book looked new, after all. Being ignored ticked Naruto off a bit, but the sight was so pitiful that it restrained him. So he just did what came to him most naturally.

He walked up to the girl, knelt down and turned the page. The gesture startled the girl but Naruto didn't seem to notice. He just sighed and looked at her. "There. Was that so hard to do in the first place?"

"Ah... Awaa..." The girl didn't say anything coherent, but just stared at him like he had just grown back his head after losing it somewhere else. Naruto just stared back, confused. "You... You can see me?"

"Eh? Of course I can. Why wouldn't I see yo-Huh?" The girl's body started tremble and tears to build up in the corner of her eyes. Naruto immediately stiffened, recognizing the signs of an incoming crisis. "H-Hey! It was a pretty stupid thing to be seen doing, but it's nothing to be crying on! I-"

"Waaaaah!" Naruto almost jumped out of his skin as the girl shouted, tears flowing out of her eyes and suddenly threw herself at him. He then became a salt statue when something else happened. The girl. Went. Through. Him.

A human being had just moved through his own body. "Muuu! It's not faaaaair!"

"... What... The..." Still completely stiff, he fell on his back. He found himself staring at the ceiling, trying to process what had just happened. For a few seconds, it was just him and the ceiling, then a head with silver hair slowly entered his field of vision. His brain rebooted. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"

"Waaaah!" The girl jumped back as Naruto turned around and sprung back on his feet, an arm and finger outstretched pointing at her, pencil and notepad scattered on the floor.

"I'VE SEEN AND DONE SOME STRANGE SHIT IN MY LIFE, BUT THAT WAS ONE OF THE STRANGEST THINGS-WHY THE HELL ARE YOU DISAPPEARING?"

"EH?" Indeed, the girl was fading in thin air, starting from the legs and going up. In reaction, she began crying out a storm. "I DON'T KNOOOOW! AND JUST WHEN I HAD FINALLY MADE MYSELF VISIBLE! IT'S NOT FAAIR!" Naruto was getting freaked out more and more by the second, but he incredibly managed to keep a decent train of thought through the whole thing.

"Son of a... F-Focus! Try to focus! Like, 'I want to be seen! I want to be seen!' CHANT IT!" The girl replied with a confused 'Eh'? "JUST DO IT!"

"AAAAH! I WANT TO BE SEEN! I WANT TO BE SEEN!" She started to repeat over and over and Naruto observed, just to find out that, indeed, she had stopped disappearing and was slowly becoming whole again, her eyes closed in concentration. When she became completely visible again, she instinctively stopped. "... Am I visible?"

"Yes, you are." The girl slowly opened her eyes and found Naruto staring back at her, groaning in exasperation. "Seriously, what the hell are you?"

"I... I..." Naruto got alarmed when the girl started crying again. "Thank god... I-It's been so long... I'm so happy..."

"... You..." Naruto had many questions and a lot more of confusion in his head, but watching the girl's face, he managed to restrain himself from going ballistic again at least until she calmed down. He sweatdropped. "Ehm, you're disappearing again."

"AH! I WANT TO BE SEEN! I WANT TO BE SEEN!"

-Break-

"You've been dead for sixty years?" Aisaka nodded, her pale ghost cheeks a bit flushed. "And you haven't been able to be seen or heard before?"

"The only times I managed to do it, I probably always did something wrong, because they always ran away. Heheheh..." The girl replied, a bit embarrassed and Naruto rolled his eyes.

"And you can't touch things either, so you were trying to turn the book's page with your breath, right?" Aisaka nodded again, much to Naruto's amusement. "Damn, it must suck being a ghost."

"A bit." Naruto rubbed his chin in thought.

"Well, maybe it's just a matter of focus, you know." Aisaka blinked at the words, while Naruto remembered his own predicament when it had come to focusing on a task. "I mean, had you ever tried something like that before? I mean, focusing on the thought of being seen? It worked, right? Maybe it's the same with touching things."

"Ehhh? So..." Naruto could understand that she was looking for something to touch. He extended his right hand to her. "Ah. C-Can I?"

"If you're able to do it? Sure." Naruto replied with a small smirk. The ghost girl nodded and then narrowed her eyes in focus in the direction of Naruto's hand. For a few seconds, she did nothing but stare then she slowly extended her own right hand towards Naruto's one. "Careful, now."

Slowly, ever so slowly, her hand approached Naruto's one, centimetre by centimetre. She crossed the last ones in a flash, and promptly gasped. Naruto stiffened a bit because of the sensation. He had never held someone so cold, before. It wasn't the worst cold he had felt in his life, but he had never thought he would ever feel such a lack of warmth coming from a person. "It's... It's warm..."

"And you're terribly cold, Aisaka-chan! Does it come with being a ghost?" He observed, staring at her hand, only to suddenly find himself with a faceful of ghost, half inside half outside his body. This time he managed not to freak out, though. "Aisaka-chan... A hand and a hug are like a pond and a sea."

"But I want a hug! Right now!" The ghost girl said with a pout that Naruto could only half-see. "And I want to read a book too!" Naruto rolled his eyes again.

"You have to be patient and train a lot. Otherwise, you'll only end up scaring people again." The silver haired ghost pouted even more, but nodded. Naruto chuckled, thinking that ghosts weren't that scary, if they were all like the red eyed girl in front of him. Then, he thought about something else. In his situation, having a friend who could walk through walls and turn invisible at will could be really useful. "Hey. Do you have anything to do?"

"Huh?" The sudden question confused Aisaka, but she shook her head from side to side. "No... I usually just wander around. In the morning I follow classes, but... That's it."

"So, you don't have anything to do during most of they day and you don't have... Like, a home? Well, not that you need one." She shook her head again, and Naruto grinned. "Well, then why don't you follow me around?"

"Heh?" The blonde grinned even more.

"I'm new here and I bet you know this school inside out by now. You can help me get around and keep me company and I can read some books till you learn to do it on your own. What do you say?" Aisaka stared at Naruto for a few seconds before smiling and nodding excitedly, floating after Naruto as he walked out of the room. "Great having you on board, Sayo-chan!"

"Naruto-san, what do you need my help for, specifically?" Naruto 'hmm-ed' and decided that he could tell her a couple things and then decide with Negi what to do.

"Well, you see, Negi-sensei-" He opened the sliding door.

"ASUNA-SAAAAN! HEEEEEEEEEELP!" To witness Negi running through the corridors with half of his class and a few girls he didn't recognize following suit. With wide eyes he followed the train-wreck till it disappeared behind a corner and then slowly lowered his head into his palm.

"Negi-sensei is in trouble. Again."

-Break-

"... He disappeared."

"Yes. He disappeared in the middle of the night leaving behind just this message." Jiraiya slowly presented Tsunade the letter Naruto had left in their room, fearful that her hands, now open palms, could clench down into fists and then impact his face at any given moment. He gently leaned it on her desk and then jumped back.

Tsunade slowly raised the piece of paper to her face and started going through it. "Did you..."

"The intelligence confirms that it's Naruto's writing. No way it can be a fake without the user having the Sharingan AND having seen Naruto write." Tsunade nodded and then returned to reading the letter. Jiraiya knew that if she wasn't angry before, she was going to be now.

_Dear Ero-sennin_

_Screw you and alcohol. You came back so plastered that I couldn't tell you this by voice. Now you're going to panic, I'm sure. Serves you right!_

_Well, to make it short, something happened and I need to go somewhere. Somewhere where you, YOU, can't come. Absolutely. No way. Nada. Niet. Nein. I don't know what I'm writing._

_I'll be back before the year is up to go save Sasuke, of course. Just be assured that I'm safe and I'll be safe, I'm sure of it._

_Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage_

"... So, Naruto was still in the room when you came back." Jiraiya swallowed as Tsunade slowly set aside the paper her fingers started to clench. "But you were so intoxicated that you couldn't get yourself to listen to him."

"Yes?" He tried. Tsunade got on her feet, slamming the chair in the wall behind her with the simple act of standing. Jiraiya shrieked like a little girl.

"I'm so going to enjoy this-Huh?" Just as Tsunade started cracking her right knuckle, a clear, unfamiliar sound started to resound in the room. Tsunade and Jiraiya started to turn around, to identify the place it came from. Jiraiya found it before the Hokage, survival instincts helping in the task.

"It's coming from that cabinet?" Tsunade turned around and found that Jiraiya was referring to the cabinet where she kept the things that had belonged to her teacher, the now defunct Sandaime Sarutobi Hizuren. She approached the piece of mobilia and opened it, the sound becoming stronger in the process.

"Where..." She began to look with her eyes when she noticed an almost imperceptible trembling coming from the one object that had always been a mystery to her among the things left behind by her sensei. "Is that thing ringing?"

"What is?" Tsunade took in her hands said object and presented it to Jiraiya.

"Sensei's crystal ball."

-Break-

"First the thing with Asuna and Miyazaki, then the Love Pills. Then they tried putting you on auction based on b-Well, you know." Naruto muttered as he helped Negi secure the room where they were going to discuss their predicament seriously, recalling the events of the previous days. The breasts contest in the bathroom had been particularly embarrassing. He had missed it because he had been reading to Sayo, as promised. "The most normal thing that's happened to you since you've come here has been the study session this afternoon. Which was with five of the dumbest girls ever, from the sounds of it."

"Aaaaah... At least, it went well. For everyone but Asuna-san, that is." Negi accompanied his words with a nervous laugh. "She's still studying, at home."

"Well, at least she doesn't give up easily. That's something." Naruto continued, nodding to himself. He had seen and overcome first hand difficult ordeals by stubbornness and guts alone. Well, a bit of luck too, sometimes. "Well, let's leave your students' problems alone for a while and let's focus on ours."

"I've magically sealed the room so that no one can hear us talk from the outside. We just have to keep an eye open for anyone who might try to enter." The shinobi smirked lightly at that. I know something you don't know.

"I've got that covered, don't worry." Or better, Sayo had got it covered. How did he love having a ghost as a friend. "So. Our only clue about our situation is this thing." The two partners in misery slowly moved their heads down, their gaze coming to rest upon the strange card that had appeared after their incident. "It's a start."

"So, we have to research every kind of magic that's related to cards... Or kissing." They blushed in perfect synchrony while Negi presented to Naruto two heavy-weight volumes. "These are the books I brought along. I hope they answer is somewhere in here."

-Break-

Sadly, it wasn't.

"Nothing. Shit." As Naruto eloquently put it, they had found nothing that included a card being created out of a kiss or simple physical contact. They had found informations about cards used for summoning, cards that were used to seal magics inside of them, cards that needed to be hunted down by lolis by Clamp, but nothing about their situation.

"I guess my books aren't advanced enough." Negi sighed, closing his own volume and then turning his head to the nearby window, the last rays of daylight peering inside the classroom. "It's getting late. We should probably head back."

"I guess... Huh." Naruto suddenly felt something touching his back. It felt like a finger. He turned around and found nothing. _'Sayo-chan?'_ Seemed like she had tried doing the 'touching' part without appearing, this time. Also, it wasn't just a poke. She was tracing something on his back, between his shoulders, gently. He blushed as he felt shivers going down his spine._ 'Bo-Re-D. She's bored.'_

"Naruto-san, what's with your face? It's red."

"Ehm, nothing, nothing." Naruto got up in a flash, and in doing so, Aisaka's finger trailed down all his spine. He shivered some more and almost let out a yelp. _'God damnit, that felt-'_ "I'll see you tomorrow, sensei!" He hurried out of the classroom before he could betray himsef. When he was certain he was at a safe distance from anyone, he groaned. "Sayo-chan?"

"Yes, Naruto-san?" He heard the melodious voice say, a bit shaky. She had to work on it, it seemed.

"The thing with the finger was a good idea. Only, could you not do it on my back, next time?"

-Break-

"Thanks for breakfast. See you in class!"

"Okay, senpai!" Naruto grinned as he closed the door behind him and breathed in and out deeply.

"Score one more for self-control." He trusted one arm in the air, hand clenched into a fist first. Sakurako seemed to have taken a habit of slipping into his bed at night, saying that he was a perfect 'snuggle toy'. That had exposed him to the softness and nice smell of the female body for the first time in his life, and for a boy going through puberty something like that earns from the body a particularly troublesome reaction. If the previous mornings he had to take a cold shower as soon as he woke up before she noticed, this morning it went down by pure willpower.

Though he didn't know if the fact that now he didn't need to get Sakurako off him as soon as he woke up was a good or a bad thing. "Good morning, Naruto-san!"

"Sayo-chan, good morning." No matter. He would think about it after he greeted the cheerful ghost that had just phased through the floor right in front of him. "Getting the hang of it?"

"Uhm! I trained all night! Now I can become visible and be heard just by thinking about it!" The two had discovered that the more Sayo tried to alter aspects of herself, the easier it became. She suddenly poked Naruto in the forehead, floating by his side. "And I just have to focus a bit to touch things!"

"Heh. Great job!" Naruto gave her a thumbs up before thinking of something. "Wait a minute. How did you train in becoming visible or being heard if you were alone?"

"Well-"

"A GHOST! IT WAS A GHOST, I TELL YOU!"

"SHE LOOKED LIKE THAT GIRL FROM OUR CLASS ROLL! THE ONE THAT'S NEVER THERE! IT WAS SCARYYYY!"

The cries came from the floor below. Naruto facepalmed.

-Break-

"What do you make of that?"

"I've always known that sensei had secrets. Some that he took to the grave. Something like this, though?" Downing another cup of sake, Tsunade groaned. "The old fart could have at least given us an inkling!"

"Well, at least now we know why Sarutobi-sensei was the only one able to operate this thing." Jiraiya rapped lightly on the smooth surface of the crystal ball, recalling the strange conversation from the previous day. "Will you stop drinking? It's not even lunch-time!"

"Well, excuse me for needing alcohol to accept some new knowledge!" The fifth Hokage frowned as she set down the cup, before screwing the cork back in the bottle anyway. "So, what now?"

"I guess we wait for the guy to contact us again." He then grinned lecherously. "Also, I have other ways of coping with shocking revelations. Not as unhealthy as drinking yourself stupid."

"Except for when you get caught, you lecher."

-Break-

"Say what you want about our situation but at least the cafeteria food is tasty!" Naruto commented as he dug into the portion he had managed to sneak out, not wanting to keep Negi from going to the teachers' lounge. Sayo had disappeared after class, something about cats. "Also, it's not so different from what I usually ate back home. Hell, some recipes are identical. How's that possible? Also, people here speak the same language as my own."

"Hmm... I don't really know..." The shinobi slurped up the last of his meal, setting it and the spoon on the nearby table.

"Something bothering you? Apart... Well, you know." Negi chuckled.

"It's about the girls. I mean, I don't think I'm doing that good of a job." Naruto blinked at that, confused by his words.

"What do you mean? Now you don't even get interrupted during a lesson and you managed to help those girls with studying as well, right?" He climbed down from the desk where he had been sitting, standing in front of Negi.

"Well, teachers aren't just a source of knowledge for students, Naruto-san." The two turned around to lay eyes on the voluptuous form of Shizuna. "I guess that's what's worrying Negi-sensei."

"That's exactly it, sadly." Negi smiled uneasily. "I'm younger than anyone in the class, so they all treat me like a little kid. No one ever comes to see me for advice or anything..."

"... I don't really get it." Naruto answered truthfully, earning a pensive stare from the two teachers. "Why would anyone go to a teacher for advice?"

"Heh?" From pensive, the two's faces turned to sincere surprise. "But, Naruto-san, of course-"

"Waah! Senseeeeei!"

"Negi-senseeeeei!" The conversation was cut short as two girls from Negi's class suddenly stormed into the lounge.

"Sasaki-san? Izumi-san?"

"Huh? What happened to you?" While Negi immediately came up with the two girls' names, one being the nurse who had seen Nodoka, Naruto's attention was more on the details. Like the scratches and bruises the two were sporting, one particularly nasty one on Izumi's forehead covered with a band-aid.

"T-There's a fight in the school grounds!" Ako let out, tears in her eyes while Makie presented a bloody scratch on her right hand.

"Take a look at this wound! Please help us, Negi-sensei!"

"E-Eh? Who would do something terrible like that?"

-Break-

"And the answer is: older girls." Teacher and guardian had arrived on the scene just in time to see another of the girls from Naruto class falling to the ground because of a ball thrown with too much force, courtesy of a girl who seemed to be of Naruto's age. Maybe one year older. Backed by a group of girls of the same age, all wearing the same uniform. "How are you-"

"Who is it that's been picking on students from my class? P-Picking on others isn't nice! I'm a teacher and I'm going to get mad!" Naruto promptly decided to trip and fall face first onto the ground. He got up almost immediately, red floor marks on his face.

"WOULD YOU PLEASE NOT ACT LIKE THE KID THAT YOU ARE? I'M A TEACHER AND I'M GOING TO GET MAD?" His outburst went unnoticed by everyone but maybe Negi, if the silence was any indication.

"Kyaaa! He's so cute!" Naruto groaned as what had happened a few days before happened again. Negi being smothered by girls. He instantly got what he worried about. Since he was a little kid, even if he was technically a teacher, no one took him seriously.

"Cut it out, you old hags!" This was confirmed by something else, as he laid eyes on Asuna and the blonde girl from the bath. Dismissing his blush, he also noticed Makie's presence, a few meters behind. After coming to Negi, she went to call for the two girls as well. She thought Negi wasn't up to the task.

"This place has always been used by class 2-A... Might we ask that you _old_ ladies vacate the premises?"

"W-What did you call us?"

"Ain't she got a way with words." Naruto muttered as he heard _Iincho_ taunt the older girls. If things escalated, it was going to be a problem. He shivered as he recollected some scenes from his childhood. Girls were scary when they fought each other.

-Break-

"In the end, we needed that old guy with the beard to settle things down." Naruto observed, sighing as he turned another page of the book. "I'm not distracting you, am I?"

"It's okay, Naruto-san. I can understand the need to have someone to talk with better than anyone." Sayo smiled, patting Naruto on the left shoulder from her floating position on his left. "By the way, where's Negi-sensei? He doesn't have any lessons right now, does he?"

"Ah. He was asked to cover for some other teacher, or something like that." Sayo let out a thoughtful 'Hmmm' as she read through the whole page before talking again.

"In what class?"

"A high school one, if I-SON OF A BITCH!" Yeah.

-Break-

"Freaking-Negi!" After running to the high school building only to find out that the class had headed along with a 'pretty distraught kid' to the volleyball court on top of the junior high one, where 2-A were supposed to be playing at that moment, Naruto had made one mad dash up the stairs leading to the court, opening it in a hurry-

"ACHOO!" Only to find himself with a bloody nose, courtesy of a flapping of skirts-is that _LACE_?- and P.E. uniforms courtesy of yet another sneeze courtesy of Negi. "Ah! Um, Asuna-san! No matter what your dispute is, violence is wrong!"

"Tissue, tissue... Aaah!" Naruto partly thanked Jiraiya, since it had been travelling around with him which had made him start carrying tissues wherever he went.

"Well, then, how about we do this? We'll have a sporting contest between the two classes to resolve this dispute." Solved the unwanted blood-flow problem, Naruto focused on what was happening. He thought Negi would be in need of help once again, but he seemed to be in control of the situation. "This way, we can all get some exercise, and there's no need to fight!"

"Agreed. This sounds kinda interesting! If we seniors lose, we'll leave here with no quarrels, and we'll never bother you guys again. How's that sound?" Thankfully, they seemed to have gone with the idea quite easily.

"E-Even if you say that... Our ages and bodies are totally different!"

"Hmm, you have a point there. You guys are no match for us at volleyball." Ah. That was why. "All right, we'll take a handicap! How about we play dodgeball instead? There's eleven of us. We'll take on all twenty-two girls on your side."

"All right! You're on!" Asuna declared. Seemed like the terms were acceptable on both side. He nodded, the sight of him doing so with tissues in his nose pretty ridiculous.

"Just one condition." He opened his eyes again at Negi's yelp. He had gotten caught by the older girls again. "If we win, we're taking Negi-sensei as _our_ teacher. How about it?"

"WHAT?"

"Eeeeh? They're going to take Negi-kun?"

"Then... Ah! Naruto-senpai!" Misa suddenly took notice of his presence.

"Ah... Ehm, hi?" Suddenly, everyone's attention was on him. His three room-mates were suddenly _physically _on him. "Wh-Hey!"

"This is Naruto-senpai! He's Negi-sensei's guardian!" Sakurako said as they dragged him to the front, presenting him to their opponents, which stared at him confused, some a bit disgusted. He guessed it was because of the tissues.

"... Hi. I fell while running here." Some believed him. Others didn't. He could read it in their eyes. It hurt.

"Since it would be a problem for him if Negi suddenly changed classes, let him play as well!" Madoka finished, earning surprise from a few of the people around, Naruto included.

"Eh?" He _very_ eloquently let out.

"Heh? But wouldn't that be unfair? He's a boy their age!" Ako commented.

"Hmph. It's fine by us... If we up the ante." The older girl with long black hair replied, a confident smirk on her face. "We're okay with letting him play on your side if, in case of victory, we get sensei and the field."

"Then, it's fine by us too! Bring it on!" Asuna continued and Naruto sighed.

"We don't get a say in this, do we?" He muttered, giving Negi an annoyed glance, to which he could only answer with a nervous laugh. Then, the shinobi remembered something. "Wait a minute. We don't have any gym clothes."

"Don't worry, we can lend you some of ours, sensei!" That made him stare amusedly at Fuuka. It would be easy in Negi's case, but where would they find a girl whose clothes fit his body?

-Break-

"I guess they fit." _'Actually, I think they're big!'_

"Thanks a lot, Kaede!" The tall girl just smiled and went to sit with the other members of the class that wouldn't take part in the Dodgeball match, while Naruto tried to wrap his head around just how could a girl younger than him have clothes which fit his body.

"Damn it, Naruto. Get your head out of the gutter." He murmured to himself as he recalled the reason why she needed such a large T-Shirt, a glimpse of the bathroom incident. On top of that, the scent of the girl was making him go crazy. It was like a mix of musk and lavender. So intense... Too intense. Too intense for clean clothes. His eyes widened. He turned in the direction of Kaede, gaping. She opened one eye and smiled maliciously in his direction. He gaped even more.

"Sensei, don't get distracted!"

"The match's starting!" The spell of realization was broken by the voices of Fuka and Fumika, the two twins edging him to pay attention.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry... So, if I got it right, the rules are hit people with the ball, don't get hit, and if your team-mates catch the ball after it bounces off you, it doesn't count?" Fuka nodded cheerfully.

"Yeah! Like, look at Negi-sensei!" The twins and Naruto turned in Negi's direction, just to see him get hit in the back of the head by the ball. "Now, Negi-sensei would have been out, but!" The bouncing ball got caught by a jumping Asuna. "Thanks to Asuna, Negi-sensei is safe!" The long haired girl then proceeded to make a throw of her own, hitting one of their opponents. The ball then fell to the ground without one of her team-mates being able to catch it in time. "They couldn't so it! That means that that girl is out, as would have been any other girl hit by the rebound before the ball fell on the ground!"

"Oooh... Sounds kind of cool, actually. But..."

"All right! Let's get this little fight over and done with!"

"OK!"

"Asuna-saaan... This isn't meant to be a fight!"

"You're just getting in the way! Go sit in a corner somewhere!"

"Iincho and Asuna aren't thinking of this as a game, are they?" Naruto said, watching Negi getting told off by Asuna. The twins just chuckled.

"We're gonna win this Dodgeball match no matter what! Don't take us lightly just because we're younger, or you'll be sorry!" Asuna boasted, but the leader of the high school girls seemed unfazed.

"Hmph, not bad... Is what I'd like to say, but you guys still don't get it. It seems that little kid teacher over there is going to be ours, after all." Naruto blinked. He knew that kind of smile. He had seen it a lot, in his life. "Here I come, kiddies! Ultimate Deathblow Technique!"

"Ultimate wh-Huh!" Naruto suddenly felt someone pushing him abruptly. He turned around to witness mayhem. The girls were all pushing each other out of the way, trying to get away, and Negi trying to calm them down and failing miserably. He turned to the older girl only for her to just launch the ball in the middle of the crowd. It hit three targets, including Fuka, before falling to the ground.

"3 People out from Class 2-A!" Declared a girl with black hair in pig tails from the high school group. She was the only one who had looked unsure about bullying their kohai, if he remembered correctly.

"Damn, three in one shot. She's good." Naruto watched as the girl threw the ball one more time... He noticed something. "Wait a minute. She's just throwing it lightly." She almost put no strength in the throw, but she got four more girls. _'It's not that she's throwing well, the girls are just too tightly packed together and the thing bounces back and for-Oh.'_ He got it. She had played the girls good. "... She IS good."

"Girls! This is really important! Keep your eyes on the ball!" Ayaka shouted out loud, peeved at how easily they had lost seven players in two throws. "You've got to dodge!"

"A question." Naruto raised a hand to his shoulder, gathering everyone's attention. "How's this Dodgeball if you can't dodge?"

"Heh? What are you-!" Asuna observed their surroundings. Their half of the field and then the other half of the field, the one belonging to their opponents. Ayaka seemed to get it as well. "JUST A MINUTE! HAVING MORE PEOPLE ON YOUR TEAM IN DODGEBALL IS ACTUALLY A _DISADVANTAGE_! THE MORE PEOPLE WE HAVE, THE EASIER IT IS FOR EVERYONE TO GET HIT!"

"They got you good with the 'handicap' talk." Naruto nodded, satisfied with his insight.

"S-SHUT UP! YOU DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING EITHER!" Iincho retorted, embarrassed.

"Kukuku. So you've finally realized." The tall girl raised the ball once again. "If you brats all cluster up like a bunch of monkeys, it's only natural that you can't dodge." That simple declaration seemed to make the girls go into further panic. "Now, who's next to go down?" Naruto lowered his body. Fortunately, he wasn't limited to one dimension when it came to moving around. "You're pretty easy to hit..." He followed her gaze to her next designed victim. "You'll do!"

He followed the ball with his eyes. This time it was a real throw, aimed at-He gasped as he saw the ball hit the back of Fumika's head.

"Auu!" The small girl fell to the ground holding the spot where the ball had hit her while the ball went back to the opposite part of the field.

"Hey! That's dangerous!" Naruto raged. This was supposed to be a game, a challenge at most, but that was mean!

"Her fault for turning away from the opponent!" He was a bit taken back by that, since it made perfect sense to him... But that wasn't a battlefield. "You're next!"

"Eeeh?"

"S-She's aiming for Honya-aru?" Honya... He tensed and turned around to see a shaken Nodoka try to get out of the supposed trajectory of the ball.

"Take this!" The ball travelled again, Nodoka just closing her eyes and bracing for impact... That never came. "Heh?"

"While I may understand you picking on easy targets, and it's kind of their fault for turning around..." Nodoka opened her eyes to see Asuna and Naruto standing in front of her, holding the ball together with one hand each, Naruto smirking as he spoke. "It's all useless if you declare your intentions before attacking, idiot!" _'Gorilla-girl is fast.'_

"We're not all as slow as you think!" _'He moved as fast as me?'_ More or less mirroring each other's thoughts, Naruto let Asuna take a hold of the ball. She raised her right arm. "Here I come! I'll show you the true power of middle schoolers!" With a battle cry, Asuna threw the ball with all the strength she could muster and Naruto knew for a fact that it was a lot.

"Eeeeh?" So, a little surprise was due when the older girl blocked it with one hand. "Asuna-san threw it a full Baka-Power and she blocked it with just one hand?" Negi exclaimed.

"GOD DAMN IT! SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT _BAKA-POWER_!"

"To think that's your true power... Pathetic." The black-haired girl declared, trying to ignore her numb hand. "Your little group of monkeys never had a chance against us from the start! Behold, our true identities!" Naruto turned around and immediately threw both of his hands to his nose when he saw clothes flying. "Kanto's Regional Dodgeball Tournament Championship Team! Mahora Academy's Dodgeball Club **Kuroyuri**!"

"... Thank god, they had other clothes underneath that." Naruto sighed in relief, letting go of his nose.

-Break-

"Hmm... Let's see... This should work." Konoemon Konoe, dean of the Mahora institute, was currently in the process of doing something that once it came to him as easy as breathing, but that was when the possessor of the object that had to work as a vehicle for the spell was still alive. "Who would ever have thought, right, old friend?"

Their meeting had been one of pure chance, when they were both younger. A young ninja and a travelling mage, discovering each other's world, fighting back to back because, either by coincidence or fate, they had found themselves with the same enemies. They had kept being allies and friends through more wars, battles, challenges, forging a timeless bond. When time came to lay the seeds of war to rest, they kept in touch.

He started murmuring the incantation as he recalled their last meeting and then his funeral, which he had attended, hidden to everyone. The bottle he had shared in front of his epitaph. It seemed like everything, the connections between such different worlds, would end with them.

Now, it seemed like everything was to begin again. Maybe evolve into something more, if he had anything to say about it. With a flash, the enchantment was completed. "Holy... You weren't lying, were you?" The tall man coughed into his fist as he observed the unfamiliar surroundings, long white hair swinging around. "Magic _does_ exist. Who would have ever thought?"

"Think? My, you've come a long way if you are able to undertake such a process, Jir-chan." The sentence made Jiraiya irritated and then stop in his tracks because of its familiarity.

"That... Nickname." He slowly brought his eyes to the other presence in the room. "That foreign-sounding nickname that I could never, ever pronounce correctly." He focused on the now visible eyes, and an almost invisible scar on the right bone-cheek. "Holy crap. Konoe-jii?"

"It's been a long time. I've heard of your exploits as a writer, Jiraiya."

-Break-

"... Alright. This isn't funny any more! Although that Tayoken thing was kind of cool..."

"A-Asuna-san! Are you ok?"

"Owow! It's just a light graze..." In two throws, a couple minutes, their opponents had managed to get rid of Iincho first and then Asuna. On Asuna the girl had laid it on heavy. Even after hitting her once, she had hit her again.

"Victory is victory no matter how it's achieved! That's the policy of the Kuroyuri!"

"There's the little problem that what you just did was just to get your kicks off, wasn't it?" Naruto shouted as he gritted his teeth. "You're going too far! Isn't this supposed to be a game?"

"Shows how much you know about the world of sports competition. You see-Ah?" Clothes started fluttering again. "What's with this wind?"

"Wind...!" _'Negi!'_ He turned around... Only to see the young teacher get hit in the head by the Gorilla-girl. The wind died down almost immediately after that.

"Don't get any stupid ideas." The auburn haired girl said, hand smoking, blood flowing from the 'graze'. "You're just as bad as them if you use violence! Weren't you the one who suggested a sports contest?" Naruto crossed his arms over his chest, observing the exchange of words. "There's no glory in winning a match unfairly! If you're a real man, you'll win it fair and square!"

"... Yeah, that won't work for me." Naruto recalled all the 'matches' he had had in his life. He had never won being 'fair and square', but he guessed that it was different in sports, things with rules.

"Auuu... Without Asuna, we're done for!"

"It's the end for us!" The two whining voices belonged to the two girls who had been the first targets of harassing, Makie and Ako.

"Hey! Don't even think about giving up!" Naruto cut off their whining immediately. "I don't know how strong they are or how many chances we have but if you don't even try, it's all going to be useless anyway!"

"B-But, Naruto-senpai..."

"Didn't you hear what Asuna-san said before? If you just turn around and run, you'll just become targets!" It was Negi's turn to interject, this time. The sudden outburst of energy from the person who had been the meekest on the field up until that moment garnered the whole class's attention. "I'm sure you can do it! Just don't be afraid and keep your eyes on the other team and the ball! Let's give it our best!"

"... H-He's right! If we lose, they'll take Negi-sensei away!"

"U-Un! We can't just give up like this!"

"Yeah!"

"... Those were some words, you perverted kid." Naruto said as he ruffled Negi's hair, with a chuckle. "Pretty inspiring."

"Hehehe... Well, I'm their teacher. I'm supposed to support and push them to do their best, help them with their problems." Again, those words confused Naruto. "A teacher isn't only a person who teaches a subject."

"5 Second rule!" While the two had been talking, the girls had started their own personal kind of attack. Naruto was surprised to hear that voice being used in that high of a tone once again. "T-The rulebook says that it's an offence to hold the ball without throwing it for more than five seconds!"

"Please hand over the ball." The situation all in all amused the shinobi. Nodoka had just meted out her kind of justice, using a book of all things. It was fitting.

"Out!" Also, Asuna and Iincho weren't the only ones athletic enough to give their opponents trouble, it seemed.

"Eei!" A throw, a kick, a 'dunk-shot'... Wait a minute.

"Oh, come on!" As he observed Makie use some kind of ribbon to control the ball, earning a curse from the leader of the Kuroyuri, he sweatdropped.

"... Nodoka-chan."

"Yes, senpai?"

"Using legs, both hands and... Whatever the hell Makie-chan is doing. It's all against the rules, isn't it?"

"It most certainly is, Naruto-san." As the 'librarian' chuckled, Naruto rolled his eyes. So much for fair play.

-Break-

"Time's up! Game over! 2-A wins!"

"N-No way..." In the end, broken rules or not, the victory had gone to Negi's class. Something that didn't seem to sit well with their senpais. "How could we have lost?" The leader of the Dodgeball team gritted her teeth in anger. _'D-Damn it all! Especially that girl!'_

"That was great, guys! Really underhanded!"

"N-Naruto-senpai, that's not really a compliment." Makie answered, a bit uneasily as she hid her ribbon behind her back, flushing. Naruto just laughed more.

"By the way, can I ask you something?" Ayaka said to him. He nodded. She didn't seem pleased. "I just noticed that you didn't lift a _finger_ during the whole match! Care to explain that?"

"Eeeeh? Naruto-sensei didn't help at all?" Fuka said out loud, surprised. "Why, sensei? Why?"

"Well... First thing, I don't really care what class Negi teaches." 'Eeeeh?' and other cries of outrages broke out from the girls.

"Naruto-san, that's too-"

"Also, just like Negi-sensei..." Naruto silenced the young teacher by putting a hand on his shoulder. "I was certain that you could do it without my help. Was I wrong?"

"... I guess not." Ayaka admitted, the outrage from the classroom dyeing down in acknowledgement.

"Waaah... So cool, sensei!" And a bit of admiration, it seemed.

"We've still got overtime!" That by now annoying voice put Naruto back in action, as he noticed a ball heading for the back of Asuna's head.

_'Alright. Time to show off a little!'_ With a sprint and a jump, Naruto intercepted the ball out of thin-air.

"W-What?" Having used his usual ninja-speed, most of the people observing him couldn't see anything but a blur. He landed in a crouch, ball in his grasp, a few meters to Asuna's right.

"And finally, like Ako-san said..." Then, something else happened. The ball in his hands wasn't still. It was rotating on itself in Naruto's right hand, much to the surprise of his audience. He stood up, a malicious smirk plastered on his lips. "It wouldn't have been fair if I played seriously! Uzumaki Naruto-" As the ball started spinning so fast that it was a blur itself, he raised his arm, trained muscles flexing. "Dodgeball Special!"

"W-What the-!" The black-haired girl managed to catch it only because she instinctively threw her hands in front of her body. But the ball didn't stop. "Aaaah!" It actually exploded, with a violence that sent the three remaining members of the dodgeball team flailing and landing on the ground. "Ow! What did just happen?"

"Uzumaki Naruto happened!" _[I]'And Rasengan training.'[/I]_ Naruto declared, touching his chest with his right thumb, before pointing at the three girls with the index finger of the same hand. "From now on, anyone who wants to lay a hand on Negi-sensei or his class will have to go through me first! Got it?"

"... Kyaaa! Naruto-senpai! Kakkoooooooi! (Cool!)" Sakurako exploded, and the whole class joined in cheering.

"Let's toss sensei and senpai!"

"H-Hey! I think I'm a bit too heavy for-WAH!"

"Aaaaah!"

"Horray for class 2-A!" Seemed like logic took a seat whenever this class was involved or maybe it was the fact that indeed, there were enough girls to throw him.

"H-Hey! Let me down! It's embarrass-HEY! WHO'S TOUCHING ME?"

-Break-

"That was crazy..." Naruto groaned as he changed out of Kaede's clothes and into his own ones, Sayo chuckling all the while. "And I still don't get who kept on touching my ass!"

"But Naruto-san, if they were throwing you-"

"Right, not touch. _Grope_ is more like it." He sighed, putting on his shirt again, before realizing something. "... I just changed in front of you, didn't I?"

"It's okay, Naruto-san." He groaned, blushing as he opened the door only to find his path blocked by something. No, someone. He raised his head. His eyes widened. "... Ero-sennin?"

"... Important things first." Jiraiya slowly lowered himself to eye-level with Naruto.

"WAH?"

"Jir-chan, are you crying?"

"I'm just so proud, Konoe-jii... So proud!" The toad sage had just trapped his student in the father of all bear-hugs. "My student is living _the dream_! The dream, I tell you! Good job, brat!"

"Didn't you say you were going to punch him in the head because he made you worry?"

"Oh, make no mistake, I still intend to!" Jiraiya declared with a frown as he broke the hug He then grinned again, tears flowing freely. "But how can I not be proud of him?"

"... Should I be crept out or worried?"

_To be continued_

_In the next chapter..._

Student and teacher meet again. Hidden truths from a not so distant past are revealed. An agreement is reached. And exams are almost there! Will Negi and Naruto be able to help the girls from 2-A? Stay tuned!


	3. Third Hour

Hello, thar. Meinos Kaen here!

Welcome to the third chapter of Pactio Quindecim! For more info about the reason of my delay, and the future of this and all my other stories, please check my profile.

Meinos Kaen

**Pactio! Quindecim  
Third hour: Dumb teachers, dumb students, a strange library**

"Honestly, Naruto. What were you thinking?" Naruto found himself, years after finishing the academy, in the principal's office. "Disappearing in the middle of the night, leaving only a letter?"

"When you came back plastered it was dawn, ero-sennin." The blonde shinobi retorted with a frown.

"My... Familiarity with alcohol aside, it still rests that you disappeared! Do you have any idea how worried me and Tsunade were?!" That made him feel a sting of guilt. He hadn't been that sympathetic for the drunken pervert, but his baa-chan was another matter entirely. "And then I find you here, in the company of a mage, feigning being his 'guardian'! Just what the hell happened to make you act like this?!"

"Heh. Bet you would have liked to come along, since-"

"This isn't a joke, Naruto!" Jiraiya usually chided Naruto's antics, but this time he wasn't in the mood for any of that. "You have enemies! People after your own life! You can't just go and do whatever goes through your mind any more! We were lucky that Konoe-jii recognized you and contacted us otherwise we would have never known where you were!"

"... Recognized _me_?" Naruto blinked, turning his attention to the headmaster. "You didn't just recognize me as a ninja?"

"No, Naruto-san. I must confess that I knew about you way before you arrived. Also, that was the second time I met you in person." The old man's words just confused Naruto more and more. "Although, you couldn't possibly know." Konoe suddenly opened a nearby drawer, picking up an object that Naruto identified as a photograph as it was handed to him.

"... This..." He recognized the picture, if only because he had an identical one in his home. It was taken on his seventh birthday. It was him and the Third Hokage. He raised his eyes from the nostalgic image to the headmaster again. "How did you get this?"

"Sarutobi was a dear friend of mine, Naruto-san. Truth be told, the first time I saw you in flesh and blood was at his funeral." Naruto's eyes widened at that.

"You knew Hokage-jii?! But I don't remember seeing you at the funeral!"

"I was invisible, Naruto-san." Naruto was a bit taken back by that. Konoe smiled and opened one eye. "Do you really believe an apprentice, although skilled, like Negi would have been sent in a place without any other mages for his first assignment?"

"... Got it." Right that moment, Naruto understood that there was more to the headmaster than a perverted old man.

"Getting sidetracked here, Naruto." Jiraiya cut into the two's conversation, brusquely. "Magic existing was a big surprise, but it worked out in our favour in the end. Instant transportation and all that... Well, whatever. Come on, we're going."

"... I can't." Naruto lowered the picture, putting it back on Konoe's desk. He pretty much ignored Jiraiya's glare. "Don't look at me like that. If I could go back travelling with you, I wouldn't have disappeared in the first place."

"What about your training?"

"It's not like I can't train here, ero-sennin."

"... What exactly did you get yourself into, Naruto? You do realize that you have little more than an year left before your time and most importantly, Sasuke's time is up, do you?"

"Of course I do. I'm not stupid. And I didn't forget. It's just..." Naruto scratched the back of his head, in thought. Ermines. "I can't leave until I figure something out."

"Something, something! What?!"

"I can't tell you, you stupid hermit!" Naruto stood up from the chair in a burst of anger, glaring back at the taller man.

"Hohoho. You two are quite alike, aren't you?"

"_ARE NOT!"_ Konoe stroked his beard with one hand, thoughtful.

"Naruto-san, could you leave me and Jir-chan alone for a minute?"

"... Fine." Naruto said, content to get out of the room. The atmosphere was getting quite heavy. Once the door was locked, the headmaster snapped his fingers.

"That should give us some privacy." Jiraiya blinked, snapping his fingers too.

"You mean, just like that?" He whistled. "Magic sure is convenient."

"But it's not perfect, Jir-chan. Nothing ever is. Try to remember that." Konoe turned with the chair until his whole body was facing Jiraiya. "Returning to the business at hand, yes. This inconvenience that befell your apprentice is magical in nature."

"Sonuva-You know what it is, do you?" Konoemon chuckled. "Well, can't you do anything about it?!"

"I could but there's two matters to take into consideration. First, it's not a curse nor anything life-threatening. Some would think of it as a blessing." The headmaster opened one eye. Jiraiya had seen the gesture enough times to understand what it meant. "Second... I don't really _want_ to."

"What the hell do you mean, you don't want to?!" Jiraiya raised his voice and slammed his hands on top of the man's desk, quite rudely. Konoe just observed unfazed.

"To begin with, I can assure you that Mahora is much more safer than anywhere in the Elemental Countries. And it's not a matter of distance only, Jir-chan. The only reason you're standing here in front of me at the moment is because I want you to." He owned the field. Jiraiya got that. "Also, I think this is an opportunity. For both Naruto, his friend, and for our worlds."

"... Look, can you be clear about this? I won't tell Naruto, if that's what you want." Jiraiya sighed and Konoemon chuckled. That's what he wanted to hear.

"Well, the tie between me and Sarutobi ran a little deeper than simple friends, Jir-chan. You see..."

-I-

Naruto, for all his anger and boldness was a bit nervous. He knew that if push came to show, nothing short that unleashing the Kyuubi would make him able to resist a Jiraiya bent on bringing him back home with him. That was why he was pacing restlessly in front of the door to Konoemon's office. "What the hell are they doing, in there? It's already been twenty minutes..."

"Naruto, you can come in, now!" That was when Jiraiya's voice echoed from the inside. He stopped right in front of the door and the proceeded to slowly open it. Stretching his neck, he put his head first in the room to see Jiraiya standing, arms crossed, beside a sitting Konoemon. "Alright. After talking with Konoe-jii, we've come to an agreement. You can stay as long as you need."

"Eh?! Really?!"

"On two conditions, though." Jiraiya cut off Naruto's enthusiasm early off, raising the index and middle finger of his right hand. "First, you're gonna have to pass a test. Konoe-jii is going to be the one administering it."

"A test? Of what kind?" Naruto asked, surprised. Jiraiya shook his head.

"I don't know." He lied. "Second..." That was when Jiraiya's smile turned carnivorous. "You're gonna have to update me periodically on any and all incidents concerning the female student body."

"WHAT?! NO WAY IN-"

"Either that, or I stay and supervise you." Naruto halted mid-rant, weighting the alternatives. Having to talk about embarrassing things or having Jiraiya be the source of much more embarrassing things?

"... You win, you damn perverted hermit." He gritted his teeth and balled his fists, but acquiesced.

"Retroactive. Starting now." The vein on Naruto's forehead started twitching.

-I-

"When this is over, I'm so going to make him pay..." Naruto muttered as he walked back to the apartment complex, holding two envelopes in his hands. One said 'Teacher in Training Negi Final Task', the other said 'Uzumaki Naruto Permanency Test'. "... I guess I'll open mine when I give this to Negi."

"Naruto-san!" If he hadn't become adjusted to it, Sayo's sudden appearance would have startled him. "Is everything alright?! You're not leaving, are you?!"

"Eh? N-No, I'm not."

"Really?! _Really really really?!_" She floated further and further in his face, to the point that their noses almost touched.

"Y-Yeah! Really! Calm down!" He went to use his hands to push her away by the shoulders and found them solid enough to do it. She kept on staring at him, though, worried. "Sayo-chan, what's the matter?"

"... You're really not going anywhere?" Sayo asked again, this time in a softer, pleading tone. "I don't want to be alone again."

"... Way to put pressure on me, Sayo-chan." He sighed but didn't deign the confused expression on the ghost girl's face with a reply. He just patted her head with one hand and smiled. "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise?"

"Promise." He chuckled and then rubbed her hair a bit. "Hey, you've been working on becoming solid automatically when I touch you or something?"

"Heheheh... Yes." Sayo admitted, chuckling. "I'm sorry for being so pushy but I finally found Naruto-san and thinking of being alone again all the time... It's scary."

"... Being alone, huh?" Those words struck a cord inside of Naruto, since that had been the defining situation for many years of his earlier life but Sayo had probably felt it for much longer. He smiled. "Feel confident about that hug, now?"

"Eh? C-Can I?" Naruto nodded and opened his arms wide.

"If you can manage it." Sayo flushed and focused, her eyes squinting cutely before throwing her arms wide and slowly bringing them to rest around Naruto's body. When she felt secure that her arms weren't gonna give out on her, she strengthened the hug. Naruto returned it, although not as intensely as Sayo herself.

"Naruto-san, you're so warm." She hugged herself to him further, leaning her head on top of his right shoulder, long silver hair tickling his nose as he rested a hand on the small of her back and the other on the back of her head.

"Heh. And you-Huh." Naruto was going to say how cold she felt, but the thing was, she didn't feel cold. Not as much as the first time he touched her hand. _'That's weird.'_

-I-

"I'm back."

"Ah. Welcome back, senpai." Naruto closed the door, confused. He recognized the voice as Sakurako's, but it lacked the usual cheerfulness that he had come to associate with it. He removed his shoes and found the copper haired girl in her pajamas, sitting under a out of season kotatsu. "Sorry if I don't get up but I feel kinda dizzy..."

"You're not feeling well?" He put away the letters and noticed that she had books opened on top of the kotatsu. "You should be in bed, not studying. And where are Madoka-chan and Misa-chan?"

"Out for dinner. Didn't want to make them stay for me and since I was bored, I thought I could try and get some studying done... Awww! I hate end of term exams!" She whined cutely, slowly leaning her upper body on top of the kotatsu.

"End of term exams?" Naruto repeated, sitting beside Sakurako who just nodded from her semi-planking position.

"They're next Monday. And, want to know something funny? This school graduates classes based on the results of their members. Ours has always been dead last!" Sakurako chuckled and Naruto stared amusedly.

"... Dead last, huh?" He raised his eyes to the ceiling. That brought back memories. "Does that bother you?"

"Nah. We may not have the best grades, but we're a fun class and we all get along great. Also, it helps that this school is an escalator until university. That's when you can start to worry." She laughed some more, and Naruto sighed. He guessed those words didn't hold the same value when it was applied to a group of people. "Hmm, head feels heavyyy... I think I'm gonna sleep here."

"No! You'll get worse! What will happen if it lasts more than one day?! You gotta get in bed!" Naruto admonished her playfully, but she just pouted.

"But Naruto-senpaaaaai, I can't move..." He sighed, knowing that it was a lie. He decided to acquiesce.

"Alright, alright." He pulled on her shoulders and got her out from under the Kotatsu, then picked her up bridal style. "This way you can get to bed, right?"

"Oh, senpai! So naughty! We haven't even had our first date!" He blushed and shook his head before hurrying to her bed and dropping her on it. "Aaan! So rough!"

"Will you stop that?! Geez, I give you a finger and you take a whole arm..."

"Ah, can I? Thank you!" Sakurako threw her arms to the side and Naruto managed to get his right arm out of grasping range just in time, leaving the cheerleader pouting.

"Going to cook something. Get under the covers." Naruto ordered her, and Sakurako acquiesced. Once he was satisfied, he turned to leave for the kitchen. _'Geez, what am I going to do with this girl?'_

-I-

"Ohohoh. Seems like your student just raised a flag." Jiraiya sighed.

"You and sensei really are alike, aren't they?" The hermit stretched and turned away from the water screen displaying the scene in Naruto's apartment. "By the way, what do you mean 'raise a flag'?"

"There will be time for lessons about terminology later on, Jir-chan. Now, I think you should go back." Konoemon commented, to which Jiraiya could only answer with a nod.

"Yeah. Gotta report this to Tsunade..." _'She's probably going to want to visit, sooner or later.'_

-I-

"Good morning."

"Ah, Naruto-san! I was worried when you disappeared so suddenly, the other day!" Negi commented as Naruto reached him just before he entered the classroom. "What happened?"

"Well... Remember the drunkard I was travelling with?" Negi nodded. "Well, seems like he found me. Also, Konoe-jii knows him. Like, personally."

"Eh? Really?" The young mage, blinked. It was strange. From what he had learned, mages had a law that prohibited interacting with the denizens of the world Naruto came from as actual mages. "That's weird."

"Long story short, they said that if I want to stay with you until we discover what happened to us, I have to pass a test." Naruto pulled out of the right pocket of his uniform the two envelops. "And you have one too."

"Wah?! A final task?! I didn't know anything about this!" The shinobi brought a hand behind his head, to scratch. As Negi grabbed on the envelope.

"Is it such a big deal?"

"Yes, it is! If I can't pass this test, I won't be able to become neither a real mage nor a real professor!" That gave Naruto pause.

"Yep. It's a big deal alright. Well..." Naruto brought to the front his envelope as well. "Shall we open them together, then?"

"A-Alright. On three." Negi mimicked Naruto, who suddenly grinned.

"Ok! Three!"

"Waaah! Naruto-san!" The shinobi laughed at the mage's expenses as he saw his partner in misfortune scramble to open the envelope. He opened his own one with care. There was a single envelope sized paper, with the following text on it...

_Dear brat_

_If you can manage to get to second base..._

He crumbled the paper and threw it at a nearby bin. "DAMN ERO-SENNIN!" He shook in anger and then noticed another paper inside the envelope. He picked it up.

_Ahahah! Got you, didn't I? Ok, let's talk seriously, now._

_I want you to search for the legendary Book of Merdiselek, which is hidden somewhere in this academy. Do that and show that you haven't lost sight of your objectives and your way of the ninja, and I will allow you to stay._

_Jiraiya, hermit of the toads_

"A book?" He squinted his eyes, confused. He then groaned. "I have to look for a book. How am I supposed to find a single book in the middle of a school this big? This is gonna be hard... What about you, Negi?"

"Well, it's quite easy! I just have to make 2-A no longer the worst class in the academy!" Naruto blinked and then recalled a conversation from the previous evening.

"... I think you may be worse off than me, Negi." He murmured, confusing the young mage. He shook a hand, dismissing the matter.

"Well, if it's about a book, why don't you ask Miyazaki-san?"

-I-

"The Book of Merdiselek?"

"Yeah. That's the name." Naruto said, arms crossed behind his head. "Pretty strange, I know, but it's supposed to be somewhere in the academy and I thought, if there's anyone knowing about it, it's probably Nodoka-chan."

"Y-You give me too much credit." The shy librarian bowed her head, embarrassed. "Ehm, I don't recall any book by that name, but, um..." She turned around with her chair and started typing on a nearby computer. In a few seconds, the search program reported exactly... "No results."

"What?" Naruto moved forward, leaning a hand on Nodoka's left shoulder. She blushed brightly as he moved his head past her own one, blonde hair brushing her left cheek. "Damn it. A big fat zero."

"S-S-Senpai."

"What?" He turned in her direction, which lessened the distance between the two of them even more. She flushed further. "Why are you so red?"

"_**P-P-P-Personal space!**_" She squeaked out. Naruto stared a bit more and then shot back like a spring.

"Wah! Sorry sorry sorry!"

"I-It's okay." She breathed deeply to calm herself down. "Senpai, are you sure that this book is supposed to be in the Academy?"

"Y-Yes. I'm positive." He couched into his fist, looking around and remembered that they weren't alone, if the chuckles coming from the surroundings were any indication.

"Then... If it's not in our database, there's only one explanation." Nodoka said, her blush slowly settling down. "It has to be in an unexplored section of _Library Island_."

"Library Island?" The name sounded ominous. "What's that?"

"It's the building standing on the island in the middle of the academy's lake." Naruto just stared at her owlishly. She sweatdropped. "Ehm, here..." With a few clicks, she opened a photograph depicting the interested area. Naruto leaned forward again, this time being careful not to get too close to the shy librarian. "That's Library Island."

"Eh?!" It took Naruto a few seconds to comprehend the scale of the photo and when he got it, he couldn't help but be amazed. "That whole thing is a Library?!" Nodoka chuckled softly at his face.

"Yes. To be honest, it's the world's largest library." Naruto kept his eyes on the computer screen but Nodoka could easily read the interest. "Y-You see, it was first established in the Meiji Era, more than a century ago. During the last World War, many important and rare books were brought there for safekeeping and as they continued, they also continued expanding the library, building new underground levels. As a result there's no one left who knows the full size of the complex."

"... Wow. That... That must be a lot of books." Naruto said, sincerely impressed. Nodoka chuckled some more.

"Yes. The Academy created the Mahora Academy Library Expedition Club for the sake of its exploration only." Nodoka continued, as Naruto finally removed his face from the screen. "It's a middle school, high school and university joint project. We explore the unknown sections and catalogue the books in it. It can be dangerous because there are many kinds of traps to protect the books."

"... That's..." Naruto stared at Nodoka strangely, his eyes wide and his stare vacant, which confused the girl. Then his eyes brightened and he forgot about the personal space rule as he grasped her by the shoulders. "That's the _coolest_ thing I've ever heard, Nodoka-chan!"

"A-AAAH?!" She was just a _little_ startled, of course.

"You're so shy and yet you do that kind of stuff on a regular basis! All out of dedication to the things you love, _even_ though it's dangerous! You're the coolest thing since Ramen, Nodoka-chan!" Naruto shook the girl's shoulders slightly for emphasis, much to her chagrin. She was becoming redder by the second.

"Ah-Eh-Uh-I-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" With that deafening cry, she spun the chair around and ran away, sending the object into some kind of perpetual spin, a smoke trail left on her path as she ran out of the library.

"... Oh, crap! I did it again!" Naruto cursed, slapping his forehead as he realized he had broken the 'personal space' rule once again.

"Nodoka isn't used to compliments." He turned around at the sound of a familiar voice. He had to lower his head a bit to look at the source in the eyes. "Remember? The same happened with the hair, although not with the same intensity. I can positively say that it's the first time someone has ever given her such an _enthusiastic_ praise."

"Ah, right." He nodded, bringing a hand to his chin, eyes rolling around before returning to the figure in front of him. "... Sorry, you are?"

"Nagase Yue. I'm in Negi-sensei's class and in the same club as Nodoka." The petite girl answered, seemingly not disturbed by Naruto's faulty memory. "Also, the one who proposed to give you CPR when you passed out in the bathroom."

"... The one who what?" The shinobi's skin suddenly went pale. Then he blushed. He remembered her from a glimpse before he hit the floor of the open air bath.

"Well, you weren't really in need of it, since you breathed just fine. Fuka was pretty eager to try and save her _sensei_, though." Naruto's skin became even paler if possible, and his blush's strength intensified. Pale because he would have to tell this to Jiraiya, the man had a special nose for when he tried to keep certain things from him, and blush because of the mental images. Then something clicked.

"This is revenge for not remembering you, right?" Yue just smiled.

"I heard you're interested in the library." She commented, and Naruto was grateful for the change of subject. "Looking for a book that is in the unknown sections."

"Yeah... If that's true, then the chances I have of finding it are pretty slim, hn?" The shinobi sighed. _'Well, with normal methods, at least. I guess it's spamming Kage Bunshin, tonight. Even if that may not be enough.'_

"Well, there may be a chance." Yue's words got Naruto's attention again. "Tonight we're probably going to take a little trip into the library's lower levels."

"Probably? What do you mean, _probably_?" _'And where did she get that juice pack from?'_

"There's the possibility." _'I was pretty sure that those rumors are unfounded, but what Negi-sensei said today in class... I'll tell the others and then let them decide.'_ "If it comes down to that, you're obviously invited. Be at Library Island at Midnight. Leave by 1 AM if you see no one coming."

"Hmm... Alright." Naruto nodded. It was a bit more cryptic that he would have liked, but it was worth a shot. Also, he was pretty excited. The way Nodoka had talked about that place just screamed **adventure** to him.

-I-

"Good evening!" Naruto exclaimed cheerfully as he reached the agreed meeting point, finding the three members of the MALE Club waiting for him, Nodoka not looking in his actual direction but waving shyly. "Here I am! I'm ready!"

"Good. We just have to wait for the last members of the expedition." Yue replied as she adjusted her head-torch.

"Yeah?" Naruto adjusted the straps of his backpack as he stared at the huge construction behind the three girls. "Who are they?"

"Hmm, Asuna-san. Where are we going so late?" Negi's sleepy voice provided him with part of the answer. As he turned around, he had a _suspect_.

"Just be silent, okay?" Asuna was also there and apart Konoka, all the other girls accompanying her plus Yue made up a _peculiar_ group of five people fittingly dubbed as the **Baka Rangers **of class 2-A.

"Naruto-san. Such a coincidence de gozaru." He turned his head to the side, hoping his blush wasn't _too_ noticeable. The bathroom incident and the thing with her clothes came to mind... Which only brought back images of Yue, Nodoka and Iincho and... He sank to his knees. "Ara, a stomach-ache, Naruto-san?"

"Stomach. Yeah." Girls were _**evil incarnate**_. He was by then completely convinced of that.

-I-

"Wooow!" Fortunately, the feeling of **adventure** came back as soon as they entered the library. He would have never thought of being this excited by laying eyes on a big amount of _books_ of all things, but there he was, admiring the contort architecture and complex twisting. "It's enormous!"

"This is basement level 3 of library island." Yue explained as she produced another juice pack out of hammer-space. "Middle-schoolers aren't usually allowed to go farther than this."

"Because of all the traps and stuff Nodoka-chan was talking about?" He had been a bit disappointed when he realized Nodoka wouldn't be accompanying them but he guessed this was a baka-ranger plus ninja problem. As he looked around, a _'twang'_ echoed from behind him. He turned around to catch a glimpse of Kaede catching an arrow aimed at Negi's head in mid-flight. "Yup. Definitely because of the traps."

"Eeeeh?! _Scaryyy_!" Makie wailed, sharing Asuna's outrage at the deadly contraptions. But it only served to make Naruto shiver in excitement.

_'Damn. This is going to be fun! Now I understand why Yue asked me to come along. Even if they don't know I'm a ninja, I-Wait a minute.'_ Realizing that traps could be hard even for _him_ to detect, ninja and all, made Naruto realize that for a normal person catching a flying arrow wasn't exactly _ordinary_. He shot his head in Kaede's direction, who just regarded him with a mischievous smile and a half-open eye. The same expression from the dodgeball game day. She _knew_ and was enjoying his confusion. _'Who the hell is that girl?!'_

"If we head to basement level 11 and then take this tunnel, we should reach our destination." Yue spoke as she examined a map. "It should take 4 hours to make the round trip."

"... Well, what are we waiting for?" Naruto made a mental of not intervening unless it was strictly necessary. Just to see exactly what Kaede was made of.

-I-

"Alright. Who the hell put together _this class_?" Naruto whispered under his breath as he observed his current team. They had just reached a 'rest zone' just like Nodoka had told them over the radio. A safe haven from all the dangers of the library. Dangers that, nonetheless, the girls had escaped without him or the currently powerless Negi-sure, make brash decisions without consulting him first, grumble-having to lift a _finger_.

He had witnessed the scared Makie dodge a pitfall trap by latching onto a ledge with a _cloth ribbon_ in a split second, the aru girl aka Ku Fei _kick back a falling library full of books_ without hurting herself and the less said about Kaede's feats of speed, the better. He first had a theory that it was compensation for their lack in academics, but then scrapped it. It wasn't just strength like Sakura they had displayed, it was _skill_. You didn't just _do _something like that. You had to learn it, practice it. "... Yue."

"Yes, Naruto-san?" The blue haired girl turned in his direction, munching on a snack.

"When you asked me if I wanted to come, you just thought you'd make me a favour, right?" Yue nodded. She hadn't asked because she thought they'd need help with the traps. "Talk about over-WAIT A MINUTE! _**I FORGOT TO LOOK FOR THE BOOK!**_"

"Don't worry, Naruto-san. We didn't come across any book by that name." Yue declared, finishing her snack. Naruto turned to her, confused. "I was checking as we proceeded. There wasn't any books with that title."

"... You managed to check the titles of all the _hundreds _of books we passed on the way here?" He blinked owlishly. "Even the ones not in japanese?"

"I had a bit of a problem with ancient anglosaxon, but... Yes." Naruto just stared. Then he nodded and turned around, trying to occupy his mind with food.

_'Ancient anglosaxon. Right.'_ He had never been one to be impressed by brains. Between Nodoka, Yue and Negi, it was time to start, he thought. _'So, all I've done up till now is looking like an anonymous passenger.'_ He grinned. It was time to show off a little, then.

-I-

"Thanks for helping me with the climb, Naruto-san."

"Well, right now you're the average nine years old." Naruto slowly moved his hands and feet downwards towards the next ledge, Negi strapped to his back. "What kind of guardian would I be if I didn't help? Although..."

"_Yaaaaaa_! What is with this place?!" The duo sweatdropped as they observed the swinging Makie, hanging from her safety harness as she lost her footing.

"I wish I could use my techniques." The shinobi sighed as he returned his gaze downwards, just a few meters separating them from the end of the huge wall-library. "We would all already be at the bottom of this thing if I didn't have to keep anonymous."

"Hehehe... Although, that would be a bit like cheating, no?" Negi chuckled as he thought about how ironic the whole situation was. After having a discussion with Asuna about cheating during which she reprimanded him, here they were finding a book so they could cheat and he was discussing with Naruto the merits of cheating. "An accomplishment's value is given by your efforts. If you cheat, or copy, what you get out of it may be valuable to others but it'll never be _really_ valuable to yourself."

Naruto didn't stop climbing down but he grinned at Negi's words. "Too bad I'm not your student, Negi. That was serious _teacher_ material!" He turned his head so that the young mage could see at least partially of his face. "You can do it, after all! I'm _so _going to tell that same sentence to a friend of mine!"

"Heh... Thanks, Naruto-san... I think."

-I-

"Aaah! I'm sick of this! My uniform's all dirty!" Naruto had to agree with Makie. They had been crawling through that passage, which was filled with small bookshelves as well, which bode the question of how they did it and _why _they thought it was a good idea, for a good twenty minutes.

"Passing over the fact that we almost all stupidly came here in school uniform..." He glanced back at Negi. "And PJs, I have to ask: are we there _yet_?"

"No. Just a little bit further to go." Naruto sighed. How much longer was he going to have to crawl in the dark? Yes, in the dark. The main reason Naruto was annoyed wasn't that he was crawling through a narrow space, it was that he was crawling through a narrow space following girls wearing _mini-skirts_ and as such his eyes would be closed until they could stand upright again.

'_Stupid school uniforms, stupid mini-skirts, stupid striped panties. But damn, Makie's wearing a cute pair. Also, because of the earlier trek into the lake, it-NO! DON'T GO __**THERE**__, NARUTO! THAT'S THE PATH TO ERO-SENNIN!'_

"Something bothering you, senpai-aru?" Thankfully, the one who talked to him was the most clothed person around. "And why are you keeping your eyes closed?"

"... Training." He replied, but if he could see the feline amused expression on Fei's face, he would understand that he hadn't fooled her.

"Aaah! So you're a fighter too, aru!" She replied, her voice sounding like she had just found a new favourite toy. "And what is this training for, aru?"

"Well, you know... Finding my surroundings in the d-_GMPHL_!"

"_KYAAA_! _**SENPAAAAAAIII**_!" Makie shrieked and hit her head against the low ceiling as Naruto tried to disentangle his face from her behind. "_Auuuu_! Senpai, we stopped..."

"IHMMPH-RRY! SORRYSORRY**SORRY**!" Naruto said as he pulled back, red in the face. Then, again striped panties. His eyes were open. "ARGH! OW!" He knocked his head against the ceiling as well. "_Auuu..._"

"Ahahahah! Senpai is _ecchi_, aru!" Naruto didn't retort, pain and mortification impeding any trace of oratory ability. Also, he was trying to knock out of his head the sensation of soft skin.

"Incidents aside... We've arrived." Yue announced, looking back at her companions and pointing at a visible trap door in the ceiling. "It's a testament to the athletic ability of the Baka Rangers that we've made it this far. Congratulations. Come, the book lies right ahead of us."

"Thank god." Naruto exhaled as the group started climbing out one after the other, Asuna being the first. When it was his turn... "... Wow!" He couldn't help the exclamation of awe at their surroundings. If what they had seen till that moment was strange, this was down right incredible. It looked like some old lair, giant statues, pillars, engravings in the wall and in an arc above a huge sealed door.

"It's the vault of the magic book... We reached it." Although Yue's facial expression didn't change much, the shaking of her body betrayed her excitement.

"To think that such a place was right under our school..."

"Look!" Makie was the first to notice the book resting on a small altar in the raised section of the room, which just screamed _'important'_. "There's the book!"

"T-That's-!" Negi instead, recognized it as a particular book. "That's the Legendary Book of _Merdisedek_!"

"Eh?! The book _I'm_ looking for?!" The shinobi gaped, turning his attention to the volume as well. So, they had the same objective from the beginning. "Well, talk about coincidences. Also, you _know _what it is, Negi?"

"It's a magical text of the _highest _level!" The young mage continued, surprised. Naruto facepalmed at his use of the world 'magical'. "It's true that you may become a bit smarter by reading it, but it's not-"

"Heeee?! Really?!" Makie cried out, excited that all their trouble hadn't been for nothing.

"Well, whatever! Mission complete!" Naruto started running in the direction of the altar, the Baka Rangers right behind him.

"Ah, wait!" Negi was surprised that Naruto had suddenly decided to give caution to the wind. "A book that important is bound to be-"

Clack.

"Eh?" For a second, Naruto and the girls found themselves standing on air. "_WAH_!"

"OW!"

"_KYAAAAH_!" The next they were all falling, for a thankfully short distance.

"... Booby trappeeeeeeed." Negi finished with a whine.

"You alright, de gozaru?" The only one who had landed on her feet was Kaede.

"Ooow... What is this?" Fei commented as she observed the stone slab they had landed on, full of circles containing a Katakana or Hiragana each.

"Huu... Hm?" Naruto raised his face, finding that he had impacted the outside of the slab and the rock floor below, precisely the engraved word... "_Twister_? What's Twister?"

"Heeh? Naruto-san, you don't know?" Konoka said, surprised. "It's a party game! You have to touch the circles with your hands and feet without falling and you can only move one limb at a time!"

"A game? Then why-Huh." Naruto almost lost his balance again. "Did the ground just-!" The slight tremor he had felt came back increased a hundredfolds. "What the-"

**"Hohoho."** Loud noises, like giant steps, echoed from behind them. Naruto gaped at the sight behind him. **"If you want this book, you'll have to answer my questions first! Hohoho..."**

"T-The statues?!" The two statues framing the altar had started moving down the small steps in front of it, a yellow dot shining from the fissure of the helmet of the one holding a sledgehammer, causing surprise and fear in the ragtag group.

"T-This is-!" Negi was probably the less shocked, since he had already seen similar things happen. This was the work of magic. '_That voice... It sounds familiar...'_

**"First question! What's the translation for the english word ****'Difficult'****?" **The statue asked. Naruto raised an eyebrow... And then his eyes fell to the floor. Were they supposed to-

"E-Everyone calm down! It'll be ok!" Negi had taken charge when he saw most of the girls panicking, only him and Konoka standing out of the game-board. "If you answer the questions properly, we should be able to get out of this trap!"

'_Well, as long as Negi helps us, how hard could it be?'_

-I-

"... The geezer drives a hard bargain."

"Yeah. Also, it finally gives most of the things that happened around Konoe-jii sense." Jiraiya rolled his eyes at the memories. The man suddenly disappeared at random times, to begin with. Like when a young Jiraiya tried to sneak attack him.

"Still, Naruto has the strangest luck, doesn't he?" Tsunade sighed, a lock of hair flying up with the air pressure. "To think that he would find a mage and-How the hell did something like _that_ happen, anyway? I mean, I don't see Naruto doing any of the required _rituals_ with a nine years old _boy_. Not willingly, at least."

"Beats me. Also beats Konoe-jii. The only ones who know are Naruto and that kid, Negi." Jiraiya chuckled, amused at the thought of Naruto stuttering and embarrassing himself trying to explain what had happened to tie the two together. "Well, when are you going to drop by for a visit?"

"Should I?" Tsunade said, raising an eyebrow. His grin suddenly turned mischievous.

"Well, I still haven't told you just what kind of place Naruto ended up into." She raised an eyebrow at that. Yeah, he hadn't. So what?

-I-

_'Dear buddha, ero-sennin, kami, whoever put me in this situation, screw. You. __**Royally**__. Signed, Uzumaki Naruto.'_

"_Kyaaa! Senpai, please tell me you're not looking!_"

"I'm trying _not_ to! I swear!"

"Owowowow!"

"I'm gonna _die_, in here! Asuna, your **knee**!"

"Freaking-! Whoever thought of this thing meant it as an instrument of _**torture**_! Party game my ASS!" Naruto exclaimed, red in the face because of a number of things: because of anger at their situation, because no matter how hard he tried he still couldn't help but catch peeks of what he had stuck his face into before, and because of the sensation his knee was giving him as it brushed against something soft and round. "How long is this thing going to drag-"

**"Last question!"** Naruto breathed out in relief, seemed like his prayers had been answered. "**What's the translation of ****'Dish'****?"**

"... Negi!" Again, he immediately turned to their two knowledgeable aids.

"You stack them! They're considered _dinnerware_!" Dinnerware that you stack. He mentally snapped his fingers.

"I-I got it!" A shaking Asuna let out. "It's _Osara_, isn't it?!"

"Osara! Got it!" Makie was the first to react, being the one on top of everyone else. Naruto's eye widened as her _privates_ almost came in contact with his nose. "O!" She touched the corresponding circle with one of her feet.

"Sa!" This made Asuna free to stand up straight again and touch the second circle with her right hand. The shinobi mentally cheered.

_'Yes! The last one and then-'_

"Ra!" Makie and Asuna touched the third one together.

"... Ook?" Naruto let out on instinct. Then, silence followed. You could hear the proverbial pin drop. In a sudden, high-intensity moment of stupidity...

"... Osa_**ru**_?" Negi murmured 'Monkey' in perfect Japanese.

"OH, COME **ON**!" Naruto let out in outrage and stood up, breaking the group and sending the girls sprawling on the floor. "ARE YOU FU-When did it get dark?"

"**Wrong! Hohoho..."** Naruto threw his head up just in time to see the statue's giant hammer descending upon them.

"Everyone, _watch out_!"

"Wah!" Yue yelped as Naruto grabbed her around the waist and jumped away, Fei and Kaede not needing any help. The hammer impacted the Twister slab, shattering it... Along with the floor.

"... Sonuva_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH_!" Naruto let out as gravity did its job, the rag-tag group falling in the darkness.

"Asuna, you _monkey_!" Ku Fei let out in a shrill voice.

_'Holyshitholyshitholyshit!'_ Naruto's mind was somewhere else. He was back in that ravine, when Jiraiya had had the oh-so-brilliant idea to literally present him with a do-or-die situation to make him unlock the Kyuubi's chakra. Again, the fall was so high that he couldn't see the bottom. Again, he was about to-_'No.'_ He came back to his senses. This time, he wasn't alone. He looked around, the girls all in various types of distress, Asuna grabbing onto Negi to shield him somehow. Kaede just looked worried, but he guessed that was to be expected. This time, if he didn't do something, he wasn't going to die _alone_. "... Screw secrecy!"

"Heh?!" Negi blinked, feeling a strange surge of energy coming from Naruto's direction. Wasn't it- "Naruto-san, what-"

"_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_!" With several pops of smoke, several copies of Naruto sprung to life.

"H-Heh? Sen-_WAH_!" Makie broke out of her desperate screaming as she got thrown by a Naruto to another Naruto, which then threw him in the direction of the original. The other copies were acting similarly. "T-There's _more than one senpai_?!"

"Y-You-! What-"

"Keep **close** together!" Naruto barked, effectively cutting Asuna off. He then began to focus. _'Come on, furball! Do your job!'_ He shivered as he felt the familiar feeling permeate his body. The strength, the warmth. His body went through the usual motions. Bit thumb, apply blood, handseals. "_Kuchiyose no Jutsu_!"

"Aaah!" Yue yelped as smoke filled their entire vision, then they impacted something soft on the way down. She couldn't see anything, but she could touch cloth.

"Hang on tight!" The smoke cleared and he could see that his Kage Bunshin had helped the ones too shellshocked. They were all promptly secured. And just in time.

"Waaaah!" Makie shrieked as she saw huge shapes throw out from under the thing they were holding onto, impacting the walls at their side. Their ride started shaking wildly, dust and debris flying off the wall as it scraped on the way down. The Naruto clone shielded her head with his body. "_Kyaaa_! What's going on?!"

"**Damn brat! Where the hell did you summon me, this time?!"** The roaring voice that suddenly boomed in their surroundings didn't help.

"Hell if I know, oyabin! Just help us!" Naruto retorted, hoping that the toad wouldn't be too difficult. Then, some light started to pilfer through from below. "Oyabin!"

"**Too little time, and the tunnel is not narrow enough! I can't slow us down enough!"** Naruto gritted his teeth as the light became even stronger. "**End of the line!"**

"Aaaah!" The quick passage from darkness to light left him momentarily blinded to his surroundings. Next thing he knew, water splashed over him, knocking him off his summon's back. He could feel his Kage Bunshin dispelling as they also impacted the water's surface, hard. _'Ngh! Sonuva-!'_ He started blacking out. He had hit the surface head first.

"**Naruto-san!"**

-I-

"What's going on down there, guys?!"

"P-Please reply!" The radio silence had been going on since the beginning of the Twister game, but the impact with water had activated the radios that much that was needed for Nodoka and Haruna to hear the group's collective screams. "_Awawawawa_! What should we do?!"

"We should contact someone! But everyone's asleep at this hour! _Auuuu_...!"

-I-

"... Damn it. I passed out." Naruto sighed as he found himself staring at a familiar cage with a seal on it, already soaking wet from head to toe. "I hope Gama-oyabin gets us all out of the water."

**"You really are a magnet for trouble, aren't you?"** The Kyuubi let out a heavy sigh, head leaning on front paws. **"That, and accidental homosexuality."**

"_Hey_!" Naruto shot back to his feet, angrily pointing a finger at the bijuu. "Take **that** back!"

**"Oh, wasn't accidental? An homosexual **_**and**_ **a shotacon, then. Should have seen that coming."** The gargantuan fox smirked, tuning out Naruto's outraged screams. **"Your floozies are going to be disappointed."**

"Shut up! And what do you mean by **'floozies'**?" Naruto gutturally mimicked the fox's voice while flipping him off.

**"That mini-brat who pranked you? The touchy hyper one? The dead one?"** Naruto raised an eyebrow at that.

"You mean Fuuka-chan, Sakurako-chan, and Sayo-chan? What about them?" If he wasn't aware that it would look ridiculous, the Kyuubi would have rolled his eyes.

"**I swear, you must be denser than that statue's hammer."** Naruto frowned and was about to utter another angry retort when he noticed something.

"Wait a minute. What the hell are you doing?" Kyuubi was confused, as the question seemingly came out of nowhere. "Mocking me? What happened to 'accept my hatred', 'let us scorch the earth' and stuff like that?"

"**There's nothing I'd like to destroy here."** Naruto was even more confused by that affirmation. "**My grudge is not with a school of brats."**

"Weren't you supposed to hate all creation?" The Kyuubi snarled.

"**Weren't you supposed to be **_**me**_**?!"** Naruto instinctively took a step back as the bijuu roared in his face. Not much because of fright or the suddenness of the gesture, but because of what the Kyuubi's words had made him realize.

"... Ah." He was making assumptions. Jumping to conclusions. Just like everyone in Konoha did whenever he was concerned. Hell, even his team-mates had done that until he started pulling victories and miracles out of his ass. _'I thought I was better than that.'_ No one would really blame him. After all, who would _not_ make assumptions about the Kyuubi? "... Sorry about that."

"**... Whatever."** The Kyuubi seemed to calm down a bit. Still, a low growl echoed in the air. "**You should be waking up soon. Good luck with explaining what you did to those brats. Especially the feisty one."** Naruto met him with a questioning stare. "**The one with the weird name. Kagurazaka."**

"Like Kyuubi's any better." Naruto rolled his eyes. Then, the fox equivalent of scoffing happened.

"**Shows how much you know about me."** The blonde stared, confused.

"What do you-"

-I-

"... Mean?"

"Ah! Naruto-san!" His eyes adjusted to the light to find Negi and Fei crouching over him.

"He's woken up, aru!" They moved out of the way, allowing him to stand up again.

"Hmm, where-Aaah?" As Naruto observed his surroundings, he laid eyes on what could only be described as a tropical island crossed over with a library. The lake they had fell into was formed by a waterfall, and many kind of plants stood tall alongside bookshelves near pools of crystal water.. "... What is this place?"

"The legendary _Deep Library_." Yue replied from her crouched position nearby a bookshelf, observing the various volumes resting in it. "I can't believe we were so lucky to end up in such a place."

"Lucky?! I was so scared that I started hallucinating!" Makie let out, still a bit shaken by what they had barely survived. "I thought I had seen Naruto-senpai multiplying and then a _monster_ appear! And now we're stuck in here!"

"Heeeh?! You too?!" Konoka let out, surprised that they had had the same hallucination.

"R-Really? How strange..." Naruto played it off nonchalantly, or as nonchalantly as he could.

"I guess the better plan, for now, is to study and wait for someone to rescue us. Like Negi suggested." Asuna admitted, with a sigh. "Damn Twister..."

"We also lost the book, de gozaru. He fell down with us, but..." Kaede added, staring in Naruto's direction. He silently cursed. He probably hadn't fooled her. Again, he found himself wondering about the real identity of the girl. Then, he processed what she had said.

"Damn it! It's true!" He shot back in a standing position. _'This isn't good!'_ "Okay! Everyone, I will look for a way out or back up! You should try and find some food in the meanwhile!"

"Eh?! But Naruto-sa-Wah!" Konoka let out as Naruto jumped high and away, surveying his surroundings.

_'Curses! If I don't find that book, I'm going to be in trouble!'_

-I-

"Hmm... Where did senpai go?" Sakurako whined, leaning her head on the desk. "He wasn't in his bed when I checked tonight and he didn't come back in the morning..."

"More like you sneaked into his bed." Ayaka let out with a sigh, the class gathered together even if it was Saturday. _'Honestly, what was the principal thinking, putting a boy in the same room as three girls?'_

"What?! Sensei has disappeared?!" Fuuka was immediately at Sakurako's desk, a worried look on her face.

"Hmmm..." The cheerleader whined again. "First the thing with Negi-sensei being fired and now this."

"... What did you say?" Ayaka froze and turned in Sakurako's direction. The girl went through the words she had just uttered.

"Whoops. I wasn't supposed to say that."

_To be continued_

_In the next chapter..._

Naruto and Negi's deadline is approaching. The two boy's tasks get intertwined together, and no matter how hard they try, it seems that the only option is failure. But, do they know everything going on behind the curtains, here? Stay tuned!


End file.
